If I Knew You Then: Part 2
by Ruchira
Summary: AU, sequel to Part 1. When things at Starfleet Academy take a turn for the worse, Cadet B'Elanna Torres finds that not even Ensign Tom Paris can help her through this one. P/T
1. Chapter 1

**If I Knew You Then: Part 2**

_Disclaimer: I, of course, own nothing of the Star Trek franchise. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction._

_A/N: This one picks up right where Part 1 left off (might help if you read that one first). It's AU, taking a look at what might have happened if Paris and Torres knew each other while at Starfleet Academy. And if you're still lost by that one line, I really suggest going back and reading part 1. It explains a lot._

_And now onto the story._

* * *

June

Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres groaned as she dropped her pack in her quarters. After eight days trying not to kill any of her classmates on a glorified camping trip in the glaciers of the Rocky Mountain, all she wanted was a long sonic shower, clean clothes, and a meal that didn't come out of a ration pack.

With a sigh, she collapsed onto her desk chair and turned on her computer console as she released her long braid from the tight bun it had been wrapped in for more than a week. "Computer, access personal messages for B'Elanna Torres."

"You have three unviewed messages," the disembodied voice of the computer informed her.

"Begin play back, starting at first message received." As she listened to Admiral Chapman reminding her of the lab meeting on Wednesday morning, she finished unbraiding her hair, getting her fingers caught in the tangles tightened by the dirt and sweat. She caught her reflection in the mirror as the voice from the summer resident assistant informed her of the various rules regarding visitors and noise levels. She grimaced, seeing her hair wild and face streaked with dirt. She couldn't recall a time she looked more Klingon.

"Hey, Torres," the third message began. She turned back to her console in surprise, seeing Ensign Tom Paris' face on the screen. "It's Monday morning, and I remembered you saying that you're getting back sometime today. Give me a call when you get in, I'm at my parent's house for my last week of leave. I want to hear all about your week, maybe over dinner? Let me know. Paris out."

Torres groaned again as she unhooked her uniform jacket. While the idea of some real food was a good one, what she really needed after eight days working her hardest not to kill herself or any of her classmates was some time alone, not a meal with an ever-upbeat newly minted Starfleet ensign.

Thirty minutes later, now in a clean tunic, her clothes from the past week in the refresher, and her hair down and straightened—a rare event due to the time and effort it took, but deemed necessary after the glimpse she caught of herself in the mirror—Torres settled down onto her bed with a stack of PADDs. For a moment, she contemplated the reading she set out for herself, trying to determine if she should begin on the technical articles Admiral Chapman had given her to read to prepare for her summer research project, or one of the Klingon romance novels she reserved for times she felt she needed a break more than normal. Figuring that a week fighting off hypothermia and inept classmates qualified, she opted for the romance novel.

She had barely read the title when her console beeped, indicating an incoming transmission. "Now what?" she muttered, turning the screen to face the bed so she didn't have to get up.

"Hey, Torres. Welcome back to civilization," Ensign Tom Paris' chipper voice greeted her.

"Paris," Torres replied with a sigh. "What are you doing, tracking my movements? I've only been back for half an hour."

"Dad just got off the comm with Zakarian," Paris explained. "So I figured you were back and he wasn't calling from the Rockies. So, you up for some dinner? I'm sure you're hungry after having nothing to eat but ration packs for the past eight days."

She made a face. She _was_ hungry, and she knew that Tom knew all the best places to eat. "Alright," she agreed. "But don't expect me to be very good company."

"Aww, Torres, you're always good company," he drawled with a quirky grin, his bright blue eyes laughing. "How about if I beam over, and we can find some place within walking distance of the Academy?"

"That works."

He beamed. "Great! I'll see you in about fifteen minutes."

It was closer to twenty minutes later when Torres heard the familiar chime of the door announcer. "Come in," she replied.

Tom Paris walked in and glanced around the single room. "Love what you've done with the place," he drawled.

Torres rolled her eyes. "Give me a break. I had about an hour to move my stuff over before we left, and I've spent most of the hour that I've been back trying to get cleaned up. I haven't exactly had time to decorate. So, where are we going for dinner?"

"Indian food sound good?"

She made a face. She liked Indian food, but there was only one place either of them went to get it. "We're _not_ going to London."

"Believe it or not, Torres, the Patels don't own the only Indian restaurant on Earth," he responded dryly. "There's a really good one about a kilometer away. Siobhan Patel herself said that it's pretty good, although she qualified it by saying that her dad's is better."

"Of course," she replied with a small smile. "Lead the way, Ensign."

"Sure thing, Cadet."

Somewhere between her stories of starting campfires with phasers and wet branches, and his tales of a futile search for an apartment in the San Francisco area that wasn't owned by Starfleet, B'Elanna found herself watching the older pilot. He looked relaxed, his blue eyes twinkling as he used his hands to emphasize particularly humorous points in his stories; but then again, he almost always looked relaxed. There was something about him that was open and trustworthy, but at the same moment, there was a large part of himself that he kept closed off to everyone. Sitting there, watching him, she couldn't help but think about the incident almost a month ago, when he tried explaining to her that neither one of them was in any shape to get involved in a relationship. He was right, of course, but at the moment she had been so angry at him that she swore she would never speak to him again. It wasn't until their friend Ryan Addison told her that Tom was already hers, she just had to wait for him to realize it, that she began to understand why he said what he did. In a way, Ryan's words had scared her more than comforted her; she was only eighteen years old, and he had essentially said that there was already a guy out there who would always stand by her, if she let him. She made a conscious decision to keep her distance—from what she went through with her parents, she didn't know if she would ever be willing to either give or receive that kind of devotion or loyalty. She certainly knew she wasn't ready for that yet.

While they tried to decide whether or not to order dessert, Paris in turn covertly studied the young cadet. She looked good, if a bit tired. Because she was half Klingon, she didn't require as much sleep as a full human would, so her fatigue probably came more from the stress of keeping her temper in check for a week than any lack of sleep she would have had to deal with. At one point, he thought she would be more placid when tired, as if she wouldn't have the energy to lose her temper, but he quickly learned that it just meant she had a shorter fuse than usual. He found he didn't mind her volatility, even when directed at him. It showed how passionate she was about everything, something he hoped would never change.

He knew he had to tread gently around B'Elanna, but that fact had nothing to do with her short fuse or violent temper. She was different than any girl he had ever pursued, differences that had nothing to do with her ridged forehead, or even her ability to solve complicated engineering problems with little more than a glance at a PADD or blown relay. She had a vulnerable side that undoubtedly had everything to do with the childhood she was reluctant to talk about, an almost defenselessness that made him want to protect her, but at the same time, she was fiercely independent and didn't want anyone to even try to offer protection, something he had to respect. She had intrigued him from the first moment they met, and he quickly found himself more emotionally invested than he even thought possible—at one point, he even admitted to her that he didn't know how to feel about his feelings for her. He had pushed her away, claiming that they both needed some time to figure things out for themselves, but the truth was, the thought of caring about someone as much as he cared about her scared him. He had promised to be her friend, and was determined to be just that.

"So what can you tell me about Officership 2?" Torres was asking as they made their way back to the Academy. Her advisor, Admiral Chapman, had her taking three required general courses in the summer session, in addition to doing work in his lab, in efforts of getting her ahead so she would have time in her schedule to study at one of Starfleet's several engineering laboratories later in her Academy years. She dreaded the general educational requirements that Starfleet required, and the thought of spending what should have been a summer vacation taking three of them was enough to make her stomachs turn.

"Depends on who you have teaching it," Paris replied. When they first met the year before, he had told her that one of the benefits of having a fourth-year cadet as a friend was the free advice on the required classes from someone who had been there before, and even though his days in the Academy were now behind him, he didn't mind staying in that role.

"Some Vulcan," she replied, frowning as she tried to remember the name. "Professor Reduk? Does that sound familiar?"

He shook his head. "No, must be an adjunct professor, they bring in quite a few for the Officership courses. Have you dealt with Vulcans much?" When she shook her head no, he continued. "The most important thing to remember when dealing with Vulcan professors is that you can't impress them, and despite claims to the contrary, you can annoy them. Just do your assignments well, turn them in on time, and don't show any emotion about anything."

"Great," she muttered. "I almost got in a fight in Officership 1."

"You _did_ get in a fight in Astrotheory 101, remember?" he teased. "If I remember correctly, Officership 2 is more discussion about the Prime Directive—you get that in all four Officership courses—basic first contact, and basic interpretation of the Starfleet directives. No more of the easy stuff about proper address of senior officers and such, no more rote memorization of protocols like you had in Officership 1. It's more interpretive, which means you don't really have many right and wrong answers, as long as you can back everything up. Just remember, if you have a Vulcan professor, you're going to want to base all of your debates on solid logic and try not to bring emotion or philosophy into it too much. And I'm sure arguments basic on how 'honorable' a decision is won't go over too well, either."

"Funny," she replied, glaring briefly in his direction.

"What else do you have? Maybe I can be more helpful in those."

"Early History of Space Travel and Introduction to Anthropology."

"Early History of Space Travel is a fun course. Lots of trips to museums, lots of historical holoprograms," Paris informed her. Of course he would find that sort of thing entertaining; he had, after all, been a history minor. "And I took Comparative Civilizations instead of Intro to Anthro, so I can't really help you there."

"Well, you're useless," she teased as they reached her door. "Thanks for dragging me out for dinner. You were right; I needed this."

"I aim to please," he replied, giving an exaggerated bow at the waist. "I'm going to be working at the San Francisco R&D for five more months before they ship me off to Mars Station. How about if we meet for dinner once a week, say on Mondays? You can vent about your classes and professors, I can wow you with stories about my glorious life as a test pilot?"

"So, a standing dinner date once a week?" she clarified, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows. When she gave most people that look, she was giving a challenge, but toward him, it was almost always teasing. "And what happens if I get a _real_ date for a Monday night?"

He responded with a slight smirk of his own as he leaned forward and slightly down toward her. "Cancel on him," he replied softly. "Have a good night, Torres."


	2. Chapter 2

July

Over the past several weeks, Ensign Tom Paris had gotten good at being able to tell what mood Cadet B'Elanna Torres would be in for their weekly dinners by the time he was ten meters away. If she had had a bad day—like the week before, only a few hours after she stepped out of a simulation of a 1970's space shuttle—her entire body would be tense, her movements stiff and jerky, as if none of her muscles could relax. If it had been a neutral day, like it was most often, her shoulders would be squared, her head held high, as if giving a challenge to the entire universe at once. On the rare occasions that she was in a truly good mood, she would be relaxed, her movements graceful, a calm expression on her face.

That day was one of the good days. It was a bright, warm day in late July, two weeks before the end of the summer session and three weeks before the fall semester began. They usually met in her quarters before heading out, but that day she had left a message for him saying that she wanted to enjoy the sun while it lasted, and would meet him by the fountain. It wasn't hard to spot her as she approached; most of the students on campus were new plebes, not allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied. There were relatively few upper-class students free to go where they pleased, making the grounds appear almost deserted most of the time. There were a handful of students milling around the grounds near the fountain, but only one sitting on the ledge of the fountain wearing dark green pants and a cream colored tunic, long curly hair pulled back into a simple ponytail, one hand holding a PADD and the other lazily waving back and forth in the water.

He stopped about a meter away from where she was sitting and watched her with an amused expression on his face, waiting to be noticed. For a few minutes, there was no change, and then as if aware that she was being watched, she looked up and smiled.

"Hey," she said, saving the information on the PADD and turning it off.

"Hey, yourself," he replied, taking a seat next to her on the ledge. "You're in a good mood."

She smiled again and looked up at the sky. "It's actually a good day. Haven't seen many of them in awhile."

"It would almost be a shame to waste it by sitting in some restaurant," he agreed.

She looked at him and frowned slightly. "You canceling on our weekly dinner date, Paris?"

"Not at all," he responded smoothly. "I was just thinking we should grab a blanket and a picnic basket and find a park somewhere."

Torres appeared to think about it for a moment before nodding. "I could go for that. What did you have in mind?"

"How about if we swing by my parent's place, grab the basket and the blanket, replicate some fried chicken and potato salad and a bottle of wine, and go up to the top of the hill behind the hangars?"

"Sounds like a plan. Let's go," she said excitedly as she leapt up from her seated position. He had to laugh at her enthusiasm.

"You planning on walking to my parent's house, Torres?" he joked as she headed in the direction of the main gate of the Academy instead of the transport station. "It's fifteen kilometers away."

She made a face. "Why don't we go to your apartment instead, then? It isn't far away."

He looked embarrassed. "My replicator is out," he admitted. "I kept meaning to get it taken care of, but always forget during business hours."

She gave an exaggerated sigh. "Fine, we'll do it your way," she said, feigning reluctance. He couldn't help but laugh at her good mood; the last time he had seen her so happy was moments after the Nova Squadron engineers were named the best engineering team at the competition at the Rigel Cup in April.

As they headed toward the transporter station, they had to step aside for a group of first-year cadets in uniform, marching in formation. "I am so glad I'm not a plebe anymore," B'Elanna commented after they were out of earshot, remembering her all-too-recent experiences of marching in similar lines.

"I'm glad I'm not a cadet anymore," Paris joked in response, earning him a jab in the ribs from her elbow and a mock glare.

Half an hour after they arrived at the Paris house, they were still in the kitchen, debating what exactly to pack for their picnic when they heard the distinctive sound of the front door opening. They both froze for a moment, as if afraid of being caught, and then Tom began to laugh. "Owen?" a woman's voice called out. "What are you doing home already?"

"It's me, Mom," Tom replied as a tall blond woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. "We were just getting food for a picnic."

"Here?" Mrs. Paris asked with a slight frown, more out of confusion than displeasure. She caught site of B'Elanna and her confusion deepened.

"My replicator is out," Tom said as an explanation. Seeing the look on his mother's face, he continued, "Did you get a chance to meet B'Elanna at my graduation party?"

"I didn't get the pleasure," she replied with a warm smile on her face. She didn't know what the story was between her son and the young half-Klingon, but as a mother of three children who went through Starfleet training, seeing cadets she didn't recognize in her home wasn't out of the ordinary. "Alicia Paris," she said as she held out her hand to the dark haired woman.

"B'Elanna Torres," B'Elanna replied, shaking it. "Sorry to barge in on your home, ma'am."

Mrs. Paris laughed. "It's no problem; I was just surprised to see my son here." She fixed Tom with a mock look of exasperation. "He doesn't visit for weeks, and then I find him here when he thinks no one is home. And its Alicia, not 'ma'am'," she added. "I get enough of that Starfleet-wife posturing at official functions; I don't need it in my house."

B'Elanna found herself smiling at the older woman's kindness; she could see where Tom got his relaxed attitude. "We were just trying to decide what to pack for dessert," Tom was saying. "B'Elanna said cherry pie would be good after fried chicken, but I say it's too messy to pack and eat."

Alicia Paris appeared to think about it for a moment before responding, "I agree with B'Elanna, cherry pie is a good summer-time dessert. Just replicate two single-serving pies instead of one regular sized one," she said, stepping over to the replicator and entering a few commands. Two small square boxes shimmered into existence, each containing a single serving of cherry pie. "Problem solved." She gave B'Elanna a knowing smile.

Tom threw his hands into the air. "And now you're ganging up on me!" he accused. "I think we should get out of here before you two find something else to collaborate on."

"It was nice to meet you," B'Elanna called over her shoulder as Tom practically pushed her toward the door.

"Come back anytime," Alicia replied. "And Tom, that goes for you, too."

---

"Are you sure you don't want me to carry the picnic basket?" B'Elanna asked for probably the fifth time as the pair continued their hike toward the top of the hill. They had been moving for almost an hour, punctuated by Tom's murmured complaints about not remembering how big the hill was every five minutes.

"I got it. We must be almost there by now." That was the same reply he had given the last three times she asked. Torres rolled her eyes at his stubbornness, but didn't say anything.

About ten minutes later, he stopped walking, looking around with satisfaction. "Here we are. We can't get any higher than this," he said proudly, setting the picnic basket down on the grassy surface.

"The Academy looks so insignificant from up here," Torres said with wonder as she looked down at the valley below.

Paris snorted in reply. "The Academy looks insignificant from any view," he said as he spread out the blanket.

"This coming from someone who's so eager to keep going back there that he makes friends with underclass cadets?" she teased, continuing to walk around the flat top of the hill. She spent so much of her time either sitting in a classroom or hunched over a console in the lab, she didn't much of a chance to move around during the day, and tended to take advantage of it when she could.

Paris didn't say anything in reply, only gave her a quirky grin as he uncorked the bottle of wine. "So what were you reading so intently when I arrived?" he asked, pouring the glasses.

"Siobhan had sent me some data, I was just going over it," she replied as she took a glass and sat down on the blanket.

"Oh, do you get a chance to talk to her often?" he asked. Their friend Ensign Siobhan Patel had been Torres' unofficial mentor the year before, even inviting the then-Cadet Fourth Class onto the Nova Squadron engineering team, the first fourth classman to be given that honor.

B'Elanna shook her head. "Only to send results back and forth. I did inherit her old research project, after all. What about you?"

He nodded. "She's doing well. She likes the _Enterprise_, likes the people on board. I think she just likes that there are so many people she can remain somewhat anonymous. She said the research she's doing under Commander La Forge is difficult, but she enjoys it. I think she sees a J. Bruce award coming out of it."

"Already?" Torres asked, raising her eyebrows. "She's been out of the Academy for less than three months!"

He laughed. "You're just jealous because you're afraid she's going to get a Bruce award before you do," he teased. "Don't worry, I'm sure your time will come. I've heard from Ryan, too. He said life on the _Exeter_ isn't terribly exciting. He works the night shift most of the time, said for the most part he sits at the conn while the ship flies in a straight line at warp speed." Paris chuckled. "Makes me really glad I decided to turn that posting down."

"Have you been making him jealous with your tales of life as an all-important test pilot?" Torres teased.

"Nah. He wouldn't appreciate most of it, anyway. His goal is to get into command, and never really cared much for flying except as a way to get there. I think he's just biding his time until he gets enough pips to go to command school."

"He graduated with pretty high honors, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he earned Interstellar Honors. Graduated a lot higher than me, but not as high as Siobhan." He took a bite of his chicken as he thought about how differently things turned out for him and his best friend. He had a job he loved; Ensign Ryan Addison fought to stay awake while flying in straight lines. _Well, he'll make up for it someday when he's a captain and I'm still a lowly lieutenant_, Paris thought with a slight smile. With how ambitious Addison was, he wouldn't be surprised.

The conversation found itself in its usual place of tales of the events of the past week, B'Elanna explaining her plans for her final projects and Tom telling about the new shuttle he was working on. After awhile, they lapsed into a comfortable silence as they watched the sun setting over the San Francisco bay. It wasn't until they saw the first twinkle of the stars that they decided it was time to begin the trek back down the hill.


	3. Chapter 3

August

"Come in," Cadet B'Elanna Torres called in response to the familiar chime at the door. She frowned when she looked up to see Ensign Tom Paris in her doorway. "I'm under lockdown for finals, remember?" she informed him, turning back to her reading on interpretation of the Prime Directive for her final in Officership 2 the following day. Although her day-to-day life of taking three general education requirements and working in Admiral Chapman's lab seemed to drag on, she had to admit that the summer as a whole had gone by quickly, and she had been caught off-guard by the sudden appearance of finals week. The articles that she should have been reading throughout the summer semester had piled up, and now she had about fourteen hours to get through a summer's worth of reading in that course.

"That's fine," he replied, crossing his arms over his chest as he casually leaned against the doorframe. "It's been awhile since I had any of Jacko's pizza."

She sighed as she tugged absently on her long braid, a sign she was frustrated. "That sounds really nice, actually, but I'm swamped. I can't." She had been unsure about their weekly 'dates' when Paris had suggested it, but had to admit that they had become the most enjoyable part of her week, even more so than running a successful experiment in the lab. This was the first time in her life that she preferred the company of another person to her machines.

"Come on, Torres, we had a deal," he chided. He was persistent, she had to give him that. She just didn't know if it was part of his charm or one of the things she couldn't stand about him. "And you have to eat at some point. Let's head over to the Union and get some pizza, and I'll help you study for your Officership final."

Despite herself, she felt a small smile tugging at her lips, not able to resist the opportunity to tease him. "And that's supposed to be incentive? Help from one of the most insubordinate young officers in Starfleet?"

He grinned in reply. "Just because I chose not to follow all the rules doesn't mean I don't know them. If anything, it means I know them even better, because I know which ones I can safely ignore."

She snorted. "I don't think Commander Reduk would appreciate your pick-and-choose approach to the Starfleet protocols he holds so near and dear to his cold Vulcan heart." She sighed again. "I'm sorry, Tom, but I can't. I still have fifteen more articles on interpretations of Starfleet protocols to read before the exam tomorrow. As it is, I'll probably be up all night reading them to try to finish by 0800. Next week, we'll get back to our same schedule, I promise."

"Not good enough, Torres," he said, shaking his head. She rolled her eyes at his faux-commanding tone. "If you cancel this time, what's to stop you from doing it again? It may be an Officership 2 final now, but soon it'll be a simple assignment, and then just because you don't want to tear yourself away from engineering. I'm doing this for your own good."

"You don't seriously expect me to stop studying just to go with you and get pizza, do you?"

"How about this," he began, picking up a larger data PADD from her desk and handing it to her. "You take half of the articles and give me the other half. We each read our articles and summarize them for the other. It'll save you the time of having to read them all yourself. The Stimler twins and I did this when we all took Officership 3 together. Trust me, it really helps."

She appeared doubtful, but took the PADD and transferred half of her articles to it. "You sure about this? Even with only half of the articles, it's still going to take hours."

"Hey, I told you I'd help with those annoying required courses," he replied, giving her his best disarming smile. "Come on, Jacko awaits."

---

"Bring that pot over," Torres said as Paris got up for the third time that hour to fill his coffee mug. It was approaching 0100, and they had been working their way through her articles since they left her quarters for pizza at 1800.

"I must have blocked from my memory how boring these articles are. I can't seem to stay awake," he confessed as he filled her mug before setting the pot on the table between them. 'Boring' was an understatement; he could practically hear the monotone voices of the writers in his head. Not to mention painful—the protocols weren't as clear-cut as one would like to believe, and reading various 'experts' opinions about what they were supposed to mean was giving him a headache.

She looked at him with a rare expression of sympathy. "You have duty tomorrow; you should probably get home so you can get some sleep."

"I only have a few more paragraphs of this article. I've made it this far, might as well see it out to the end." He tapped the PADD's stylus against his knee absently. "Although this means you owe me."

The expression on her face was dubious, her guard instantly up. "What's that?" She knew better than to trust him when he said that. She still didn't know exactly where they stood, relationship-wise. Officially, they were just friends, which was certainly true on a physical level; they had never done anything more than just talk. With the exception of after the awards ceremony at Rigel Cup the previous April, she didn't think they had even _hugged_. Yet, if one were to count their dinners as 'dates', that would make Tom Paris the longest relationship she had had. And then there was the how he felt about her--or, rather, how he had admitted that he didn't know what to feel about how he felt about her. She didn't allow herself to think about how she felt about him.

"Thursday, after your last exam, we're going to Sandrine's, the bar I discovered during my semester in France. Going there after finals week is a long standing tradition." Ryan, Siobhan, Gial, and the Stimler twins had beamed over there after his last final at the Marseille campus to help him celebrate. They loved the seediness of it and went back every semester after that.

"You really need to make friends who aren't still in school," she replied, her lips twitching into her first smile in the last few hours. "You're an ensign now, you shouldn't still be celebrating the end of finals." Despite her teasing words, she felt oddly touched to be included in one of his Academy traditions, something he had only shared with his five closest friends. He pretended to be an open book for anyone to read, but she knew that he was much more complicated than that.

"Just holding on to my wasted youth," he replied with a grin. "I've finished this article, if you're ready for the summary."

She sighed as she rubbed her neck, the good mood of a few seconds before gone again. "Guess I don't have much of a choice. Go ahead, let's get this over with."


	4. Chapter 4

August

Cadet B'Elanna Torres couldn't help but grin as she tossed her PADD on the bed of her summer dorm room, finally done with the summer semester and the general education courses that consisted of. She would have to take a look at the tentative schedule she had planned for her time at the Academy; if it contained any more semesters of nothing but required classes, she was going to have to stand up to Admiral Chapman and tell him it wasn't going to happen.

She was still smiling as she opened her closet and began contemplating what to wear to the French bar Paris was dragging her to in an hour or so. Soon, her smile turned to a frown as she systematically rejected every outfit she had hanging there. _Guess it's time for the replicator_, she thought. She didn't usually put this much thought into what she wore, but found herself oddly concerned with making sure she looked okay. Maybe it was just her good mood about finals being over carrying over to her anticipation about the evening. She didn't let herself contemplate any other possibility, such as the nervousness being a result of anticipating the company.

After replicating a new outfit and fixing her hair, she glanced at the chronometer before settling at the desk to get some work done before Paris arrived. She was almost done with her analysis of a recent experiment when her console beeped to indicate a new transmission. "Paris," she said, almost surprised. "I thought you were coming by in about ten minutes to pick me up."

Ensign Tom Paris grimaced on the display. "About that, Torres... I'm going to have to ask for a rain check. I got called to Mars earlier than anticipated. I tried reaching you before I got on the shuttle earlier today to let you know, but you weren't in, and I didn't want to just leave a message. I'm really sorry about this. I hope you're not too disappointed."

"No, it's fine," Torres replied. She did, in fact, feel an odd pang of disappointment. "Bars aren't really my thing, anyway." She hoped he wouldn't be able to see through her facade.

"Well, I'm still sorry," Paris declared. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Yeah," Torres replied. They talked for a few more minutes before disconnecting. With a sigh, she changed into a simpler off-duty outfit and carefully hung the new one in her closet. Maybe some other time.

---

November

Cadet B'Elanna Torres squinted as she reconfigured the power relay of one of the Nova Squadron slower-than-light shuttle crafts. They had just returned a few days ago from the Academy Flight Range near Saturn for Nova Squadron try-outs, and some of the prospective pilots were more reckless with the older shuttles than the crafts were used to. She swore absently in Klingon as the laser slipped again. The bulky tool wasn't the best for the small craft, but she didn't have anything smaller that could do the job. With a groan, she powered up the tool again and went back to work

"I thought I'd find you here," a friendly voice said from behind her.

In surprise, she dropped the tool again. Swearing loudly this time, she spun to face the perpetrator. "Paris!" she exclaimed with a scowl. "Don't sneak up on me like that! I could have cut off my fingers." She took a deep breath to calm down. "What are you doing here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be on Mars?" Although they spoke over the comm about once every third week or so, she hadn't seen him in person since the Monday of finals week in August.

He grinned. "Happy birthday," he said, holding out a slender box wrapped in silver paper.

She frowned, staring down at the box. "What?"

His smiled faltered briefly. "November 13," he explained. "That is your birthday, right?"

Still frowning, she thought about that for a moment. "We didn't celebrate my Terran birthday when I was growing up," she said, but took the box anyway. "And Klingons don't celebrate many birthdays, anyway."

"So when's your birthday in the Klingon calendar?"

She narrowed her eyes slightly. "The third day of _Maktag_," she replied.

"When does that fall?"

She sighed. "I have no idea," she admitted. She looked back down on at the box. "So what is it?"

"You're supposed to open it," he teased. She glared briefly at him, but began peeling back the paper.

She eyed the small silver tool for a second before pressing the button on the side. A small blue ray of light emerged from the end. "A micro laser cutter!" she exclaimed, her eyes brightening. "This is exactly what I needed."

"The engineers at Utopia Planitia use these for their precision work," he explained. "I thought you could use one, especially right after try-outs. I remember how beat up the shuttles would get and how much Siobhan would complain about it."

"This is perfect," she said. "Thank you."

He grinned at her gratitude. "I'm glad you like it. Now, shall we get going?"

Frowning again, she asked, "Going where?"

"Dinner," he said, as if it were self-explanatory.

A slight smirk crossed her features. "Funny, I thought it was Wednesday," she replied.

"It's your birthday," he repeated. "Do you mean to tell me that you would turn me away after I made the trip all the way from Utopia Planitia?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry you made the trip for nothing, but I promised Jacks I'd finish this up tonight. The new squad has practice tomorrow afternoon. Then they'll get it right back to where it was, and I'll be doing this again tomorrow evening." She rolled her eyes and glanced sideways at him. "Pilots," she muttered, barely containing a grin.

He grinned in reply as he began scanning the hangar. "Hey, Jacks!" he called out once he spotted the tall, dark-skinned cadet in his dark green Nova Squadron utility jumpsuit. "It's Torres' birthday. Mind if I take her away for dinner?"

"Please do, Ensign," chief engineer Cadet First Class Augustin Jackson's deep voice replied. "She's been here for five hours already. She's making us look bad."

"It's really not necessary, Jacks," Torres protested. "I can finish up on this shuttle."

Jacks shook his head. "It's nothing we can't handle, Torres. There are nine other engineers on this team, remember? Go enjoy your birthday." He grinned shrewdly. "Let the ensign spoil you for once, will ya? You deserve that much, after putting up with him as long as you have."

B'Elanna flushed a dark red, but didn't say anything as she slipped out of her utility jumper to reveal her cadet's uniform underneath. "So where are we going?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice even. Although he found Jacks' words funny, Paris couldn't help but be annoyed at the chief engineer; B'Elanna liked to keep her personal life to herself, and Paris knew that she didn't appreciate the thought that other people were speculating on her relationship with the older pilot.

"Well, I thought you'd like to stop by your dorm and change first," he replied, keeping his voice light and purposely not revealing any more than necessary. At her questioning gaze, he added, "They probably don't get many Starfleet cadets where we're going."

That did nothing to lessen her confusion. For the first time, she realized he was out of uniform—not a rare occurrence for their dinners together—in a loose-fitting short sleeved shirt and light trousers, clothing too light for San Francisco in November. "Uh-huh," she replied dubiously. "And just what am I supposed to wear?"

"I took care of that, too," he replied with a grin as they approached her building. "I'll wait down here," he said when they entered the lobby. Although going up to her room wasn't a problem during the summer session when the few people on campus tended to look the other way, it was technically against the rules for officers to visit cadets in their rooms unless they had official business.

About fifteen minutes later, B'Elanna came back down to the lobby in a simple cream dress, her dark curls loose with a single braid framing her face. "I'm going to freeze to death out there in this," she grumbled, but he could tell she liked the dress.

"Only as far as the transporter station," he said, rising and offering his arm, which she took.

She was shivering the whole way to the transporter station, and relaxed visibly when they stepped outside after rematerializing. "Where are we?" she asked, taking in the palm trees, white sand beach, and bright blue water.

"Mexico," he replied. "I figured you'd appreciate the warmer weather."

She smiled. "It is nice," she agreed. "So where are we going for dinner?"

"There's a small seafood restaurant on the beach about half a kilometer away. I've never been, but my sister Elisabeth says it's pretty good."

The food _was_ good, but Torres couldn't help the nagging feeling she had in the back of her head that it was all wrong. In the middle of a conversation about the new Nova Squadron team as they walked along the beach, she interrupted him and said, "You have to stop this."

He blinked, caught completely unaware by her statement. "Asking about the new squad?" he asked.

"No, not that," she said quickly. She gestured widely. "This, the surprises and the tropical dinner and the dress. Whatever you're doing, it has to stop." She could still remember that disappointment after he cancelled on their trip to Sandrine's a few months before, the strange emptiness that she couldn't quite explain. She didn't want to feel that again.

He stopped and turned to her, his blue eyes looking deep into her brown ones. "I'm sorry," he said plainly. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I know you haven't had an easy semester, and I know you hate how cold San Francisco gets, so I thought I'd do something to make you happy."

"You can't fix things just because you want to," she argued. "Swooping in and beaming me to Mexico for dinner isn't going to suddenly make me get along with my professors or my roommate or my classmates, it isn't going to help me tolerate the Nova Squadron pilots or be okay with the things they do to my shuttles, it isn't going to make me stop thinking of them as _my_ shuttles!" She took a deep breath and stepped away from him, looking out toward the water. "I don't need someone to try to fix things for me, Tom. I have to figure things out for myself. You told me that." She turned back to face him. "Please, just back off. I want you to be my friend, not whatever you're trying to be." Her voice softened slightly. "Thanks, for tonight. Just don't do it again."

He stared at her for a moment before responding. A large part of him felt guilty about how hard things had been over the past semester. The year before, while he was still at the Academy, he had befriended her and introduced her to his circle of friends, and just when she was getting comfortable with them, they graduated and took postings around the quadrant while she was stuck alone at the Academy. If he hadn't come along, she wouldn't have been dependent on him for friends, and maybe she'd be happier now. "Okay," he said reluctantly, then smiled wickedly. "But don't think this means you're free from the Monday night dinners."

She snorted as they resumed walking. "We're not even living on the same planet, remember?"

"There's no saying how long it'll be before they transfer me back to San Francisco, or McKinley Station, or anywhere else R&D has a space craft division. Moving every few months is part of the job description. So, did you want to get back to campus, or stay a little bit longer?"

"Don't you have to get back to Mars at some point?"

"The last transport doesn't leave San Francisco until 2100," he replied.

"In that case, let's stay and enjoy the warmth."

"That's a great idea," he replied, smiling slightly. "So, nineteen years old? If I had known you were so young…"

"Actually, I'm still eighteen," Torres replied, a smug smile tugging at her lips. "My birthday's not until January."

He gaped at her in surprise. "You let me believe that today was your birthday without saying anything?"

She shrugged slightly, trying to contain her grin. "I wanted to know what was in that box."


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: I promised you during Part 1 that Torres' involvement with Nova Squadron would become an issue during Part 2. So, just to warn you, there will be spoilers to random TNG episodes during this story (not so much this chapter, but the sight of one of the character's names reminded me of that fact). Obviously, things will be slightly different (okay, quite different) as this an AU story._

_Sorry for the interjection. I'll get back to the story now._

* * *

December

Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres was in the middle of a repair when an angry voice called for her. "Torres!"

"What?" came the equally angry reply from under a maintenance panel of an extra shuttle on the opposite side of the hangar.

Cadet Second Class Jean Hajar stormed toward the younger engineer, a furious expression on her face. "The maintenance logs say that you fixed the navigational array in my craft, so how can you explain the fact that I almost flew right into Locarno just now?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was pilot error!" Torres shouted back. Of the five pilots and two alternates, Hajar was her least favorite, and it rarely took more than a few words to have the two screaming at each other.

Hajar's face turned bright red in anger. "If you're going to say you completed a repair, you better have done it! I know sometimes you engineers forget while you're safely on the surface of some planet or station that we pilots are putting our lives at risk when we're out there. The least you can do is to do your job!"

"I did fix your array, Hajar," Torres replied coldly. She didn't appreciate anyone implying that she hadn't done her job. "I spent three hours doing that Tuesday night instead of studying for my exobiology final on Wednesday, because I knew you would need it for practice on Wednesday. It's not my fault you blew it out again on Wednesday and didn't put in a maintenance request."

Torres didn't think it was possible, but Hajar's face flushed a deeper red in her anger. "You should have checked it over when we got in from practice!" she exclaimed.

"I'm not a mind reader!" Torres shouted back. "If you damage your craft, you have to put in a request, and one of us will get to it. We can't run full diagnostics every time you guys land." The truth of the matter was, Hajar had a long history of blowing circuits and fusing relays and forgetting to let the engineers know, thinking that they would have it taken care of.

"It's called professional pride, Torres," Hajar replied coldly. "You should have done your job."

"And you should have done yours," a calm third voice added. Both women spun to see Chief Engineer Jacks approach. "We have protocols for repairs for a reason, Hajar. You fill out a request, we'll get on it. We can't fix problems we don't know we have."

"Of course you'd take _her_ side," Cadet Hajar retorted. "You engineers don't know what it's like to be out there. Just remember, you guys work for _us_."

"No, we don't," Jacks told her, taking a step closer, forcing the smaller cadet to look up at him. "We're a team here, and we all have to work together. If you have a problem with that, I'm sure Captain Rawlings would like to hear about it." When she didn't reply, he told her, "You're dismissed, Cadet."

She opened her mouth to protest, but then realized she was talking to a superior ranked cadet. She flushed and turned on her heel to storm out.

"Thanks, Jacks," Torres said after Hajar was out of earshot.

"Oh, don't thank me," Jacks replied. "Hajar's irresponsible, but that's no reason to lose your temper."

B'Elanna stared at him incredulously. "You were there, Jacks! You heard her yell at me first and practically accuse her of trying to kill her! Although I must admit, that's not a bad idea."

"Talking like that doesn't do any of us any good," he said sternly. "Yes, she started it. Yes, she was wrong. Yes, we're the best student engineering team in the Federation." She smiled slightly at that, but he wasn't done. "We know these things, and I bet she knows them too, but the fact is, we're in the background. When they fail, everyone notices. When they succeed, everyone notices. When we fail, people die, and when we succeed, nobody knows we did anything. It's the engineers who build societies, Torres, but it's the leaders who get the credit for it. The unfortunate truth is, most pilots don't even know what we do or how hard we work to do it, and most don't care. You got spoiled by dealing with Paris and Addison last year, but they're the exception, not the rule. If you want to be an engineer, you're going to have to learn to deal with their crap."

"I'm not going to just roll over for some self-centered _petaQs_," she spit out in reply.

Jacks smiled thinly. "Believe me, Torres, no one expects you to roll over for anything. All I'm saying is that this is Starfleet, and if you have a problem you have to solve it the Starfleet way. If you have an issue with anyone on the team, engineer or pilot, you tell me first, don't try to deal with it on your own. I'll talk it over with Locarno and Rawlings. That's our job and our worries, not yours. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, properly chastised.

He nodded once. "Good. Now, I understand you have a final tomorrow morning?"

She snorted. "It's for Chapman's Impulse class. I can do that stuff in my sleep."

He smiled. "I'm sure of it. Even so, we have five engineers who are finished with finals and sticking around until tomorrow afternoon. Go study or relax or rip the heads off some Klingon warriors in a bat'leth program, or whatever it is you do for the few hours a day you aren't here or in class. We have this taken care of."

She was about to protest, but thought better of it. "Sure, Jacks. Have a good break, okay?"

"You too, Torres. And I expect a perfect score on that final for Chapman tomorrow."

She smiled thinly in reply as she shed her green utility jumper. Acing her exam on Impulse Mechanics was something she could do. Living within Starfleet protocols was something significantly more difficult.

---

A few hours after the altercation in the Nova Squadron hangar, Cadet B'Elanna Torres was lounging on her bed and checking over a series of calculations to prepare herself for her Impulse Mechanics final the next morning when her console beeped. Ignoring the dirty look she got from her roommate from the other side of the room, she turned her monitor to face her and hit the accept button.

"What do you want, Paris?" she asked with a tired sigh when his face appeared on the screen. He smirked.

"Well, I can see you're in a great mood this evening," he replied.

"It's been one of those days," she said, not bothering to clarify. "Listen, I have a final tomorrow morning, so if you just wanted to check up on me, can it wait until after my exam?"

"Actually, I did have a specific question in mind," he replied. "I was wondering what you were planning on doing for break."

She snorted. "Getting far away from here," she answered. As to where, she had no idea.

"I figured that. Did you have somewhere specific in mind?"

She shook her head. "Not really," she admitted.

"What about the French Alps?" he asked.

"Sounds a little bit too cold for my tastes. Why?"

"My family has a cabin in the mountains. We go there every year during break, do some skiing, drink some wine, that sort of stuff."

She glanced at him dubiously. "Paris, we've been over this," she began. On top of everything else that had been going on that semester, she really didn't need to deal with...whatever it was that she had to deal with when it came to Ensign Thomas Eugene Paris.

He held up his hands to stop her. "It's not like that," he said defensively. "My whole family will be there—both of my parents, my sisters, their husbands and kids. Gial will be there, too, he'll be on break from law school. After putting three kids through the Academy, my parents are used to having cadets over. Gial spent more time with my parents our first year than I did."

She sighed. "What I need right now is a break from Starfleet, not spending my vacation with one of the most Starfleet families on the planet. I appreciate the offer, really, but—"

"We leave Starfleet in San Francisco," he interrupted. "Nobody'll even bring a uniform to France. We always have a lot of fun, and you'll completely forget about Starfleet and school and impulse engines. Well, probably not, since you probably have dreams about impulse engines, but you know what I mean."

She rolled her eyes. Although every fiber in her being was telling her to turn him down, she couldn't bring herself to do it. He had a point; she needed a place to go during the break that was far away from San Francisco, and nothing he described sounded all that horrible. "Okay, Paris, you win," she replied reluctantly. "Do you want to meet me here tomorrow after Nova Squadron practice?"

He shook his head. "I'm not scheduled to come in to San Fran until Saturday morning. I'll meet up with you at my parent's house then. I'll let them know you're coming over tomorrow evening." She must have looked dubious, because he added, "Trust me, it's no problem. My mom has empty nest syndrome like you wouldn't believe, she just likes having people over to spoil."

"I don't need to be spoiled," she argued, then sighed. "Just make sure they're expecting me. The last thing I need right now is to show up unannounced at an admiral's house."

"I'll take care of it," he promised. "Now get back to studying. That's an order."

She rolled her eyes. "As if I'd listen to an order from you," she snorted. He grinned at the words. "See you Saturday."


	6. Chapter 6

December

Despite Tom's reassurances, B'Elanna Torres felt distinctly uncomfortable as she pressed the announcer chime at Admiral Owen Paris' house. A few second later, the door swung open (hinged doors; Torres hadn't realized that the other time she had been there), revealing a small girl with long blond hair.

"Hi," B'Elanna said uncertainly, her feeling of discomfort not lifted. She didn't have much experience with kids, and didn't really know what to say to them.

"Hi," the girl replied. "I'm Linssay. Who're you?"

B'Elanna opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted before she got the chance. "Come on in, B'Elanna," Alicia Paris said as she emerged from the kitchen. Eyeing the cadet's bag and uniform, she added, "I'll show you your room so you can put down your stuff and change out of your uniform." She gestured for Torres to follow her up the stairs. "I hope you don't mind, we're putting you in Tom's old room. Gial arrived yesterday, and he took the guest bedroom. He says sleeping in Tom's room gives him nightmares." Although the idea of sleeping in the room Tom grew up in was a little weird to B'Elanna, she told Alicia it would be fine. When the older woman opened the door at the end of the hall, it took all of her willpower to not burst out in laughter.

"I can see what Gial was talking about," she said wryly as she set her bag on the bed. The walls were covered with posters that looked like the covers of the old comic books Tom enjoyed, complete with monsters and ghouls and blood.

"Tom's always had a thing for twentieth-century history," Mrs. Paris said with a laugh. "Especially pop culture, like comic books and horror films. I guess that's my fault, working at the Museum of Culture." She paused, a look of concern crossing her features. "Are the posters going to be a problem?"

"No, not at all," Torres replied quickly. "The bedtime stories I heard from my mother growing up set the nightmare threshold pretty high. It'll be fine."

"Good," Alicia replied with a smile. "I suppose I should make Tom take this stuff down so I can turn this into a proper guestroom, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Anyway, I'll let you change, and then feel free to come down to the kitchen. The kids have convinced me to bake pie for dessert tonight." She rolled her eyes. "Easier said than done with these kids, they're as ornery as their mother. Gial's helping, too, but he's about as useful as the one-year-olds would be."

B'Elanna returned the smile. "I'll be down in a few minutes."

After exchanging her uniform for a tunic and slacks, B'Elanna headed down to the kitchen, which, true to Mrs. Paris' words, looked hectic. "Hey, Torres," Ensign Winat Gial greeted her with a smile. "You come to join the party?"

"I don't think I'd be much help. I've never baked a pie," she protested. _Or anything else_, she added to herself.

"Gial, you're rolling that too thin," Alicia said, leaning over to check his progress.

"As you can see," Gial said with a rueful smile as he folded the dough and began again. "I'm not much help, either. Come on, there's more dough to be rolled, you can help me."

"I don't know, it looks like you're doing a great job on your own," Torres teased as she watched the tall Bajoran law student concentrate on the task at hand. He was deliberate in his every movement, his dark eyes studying the circle of dough under his rolling pin. Of Tom's friends from the Academy, he was the quietest, his movements the most premeditated, as if he believed he were under constant scrutiny, which as one of the few Bajorans in Starfleet, he may have been. It was a feeling B'Elanna knew well, although she didn't handle it as well as he did; he had an almost uncanny ability to deal with changing circumstances as they arose, as if he was prepared for anything and everything, and nothing the universe threw at him was capable of bothering him. She remembered Tom saying that Gial had his own unique set of issues to deal with, but he hadn't elaborated. Whatever those issues were, they turned Gial into a better Starfleet officer than B'Elanna's own issues ever could.

"If you don't want to help with the dough, we can use some help with the apples," Alicia informed her. "No, Parker, I don't want you playing with that knife," she scolded the small boy as she removed the sharp paring knife from his hands.

"I really wouldn't know what to do," Torres protested.

"It's quite simple, you just follow the directions in the recipe," Alicia Paris replied, pointing at the PADD in front of her. "Think of it as a technical manual, only you're making pie instead of repairing plasma conduits."

"Siobhan didn't buy that argument, either," Gial said with a chuckle, seeing Torres' dubious look.

"Siobhan knows how to cook," Torres pointed out. "Her dad owns a restaurant." Despite her doubts, she walked over to Alicia and allowed the older woman to show her what to do.

---

"I'm home!" Ensign Tom Paris called out as he crossed the threshold to his parent's house.

"Good," his father stated from the chair, where he was reclining and reading a PADD. "The sooner you get changed and packed, the sooner we can get going."

Tom laughed as he bounded up the stairs. "Yes, sir!" he replied cheekily. Looking forward to heading out to the cabin for winter break was one of the few things that the Paris men agreed on.

He opened the door to his room and skidded to a halt in the doorway. "Well, this is a surprise," he drawled.

Cadet B'Elanna Torres looked up from the PADD she was reading while lying on the bed. "You knew I'd be here."

"I didn't expect you to be _on my bed_."

She glared briefly at him before turning back to her PADD. "Get whatever thoughts you're having out of your head. There are only so many rooms in this house, and Gial claims that your posters give him nightmares."

He chuckled as he opened his closet and began pulling out clothes. "Yeah, he's not a fan of pop history. So none of these monsters gave you any night terrors?"

She rolled her eyes. "I have a Klingon mother, remember? I grew up with stories of gushing rivers of blood and warriors who killed their own gods. No, this room doesn't bother me. It's very…you."

He glanced around briefly before getting back to his packing. "Yeah, I love this room. It was a great place to grow up. Dad used to send me up here as a punishment before he realized that I liked being up here alone. I had my toys and my games when I was little, my books and 'contraband', as my father would call it, when I was older. When I was seventeen-" he stopped talking and glanced at her, blushing briefly. "I have a lot of memories in this room," he finished.

"Uh-huh," she replied dryly, turning back to her PADD with an amused look on her face.

"So, how was your night alone with my family? As horrible as you imagined?"

"Not bad," she admitted. "Gial taught me how to play this Bajoran game that's a bit like chess, I talked to Elisabeth for a bit, and I even baked a pie with your mother, Gial, and your niece and nephew."

He laughed as he folded a sweater and placed it neatly in his duffle. "You, Gial, an eight-year-old and a four-year-old? Something tells me Mom did most of the work."

"Well, yeah," she conceded. "But nobody died of food poisoning, so I consider it a success."

He chuckled at her declaration. "You spend much time talking to my dad?"

She made a face. "No, I kept my distance. I'm not that good with dealing with admirals, remember? Besides, he didn't come home until right before dinner, and then he spent most of the evening discussing command theories with Janine while Gial and I played that chess-like game."

"You're going to have a hard time avoiding him for ten days," Tom pointed out. "Besides, I think you two have a lot in common, you're both science-type people."

"We'll see," she grumbled in reply.

He grinned. "Good. And now you need to leave."

She looked confused. "What?"

He shrugged. "Well, you can stay if you want, but I need to change out of this uniform before we get going."

With a roll of her eyes, she stepped off the bed. "I'll be downstairs, waiting impatiently with the rest of your family."

"I'll be there in a minute," he promised as she closed the door behind her. He couldn't help but grin as he pulled off uniform jacket. It was going to be a great break.


	7. Chapter 7

December

"Dad, I'm worried about B'Elanna," Tom blurted out as he took a seat on the anti-gravity lift that would take them back up to the top of the mountain.

Admiral Owen Paris blinked at his only son as he sat next to him. Several days into their stay in France, the pair had been skiing alone together for the past five hours, and those were the first words either spoke to the other, with the exception of deciding which path to take down the mountain. "What do you mean?" he asked cautiously. He didn't know exactly what the relationship was between his son and the fiery half-Klingon, but then again, there were some things a father didn't _want_ to know.

Tom sighed. "I don't know. She's been, well, really moody lately."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, son, but she _is_ half Klingon."

His son frowned. "I know that, and if it were a matter of her losing her temper easily or overreacting to things that aren't important, I wouldn't be too concerned. But she seems apathetic about everything, as if none of it matters. I don't think I've seen her looking over data from her research or studying schematics for a long time, and she usually can't go three hours without thinking of something to make note of. Something's bothering her, but she won't talk to me about it." He sounded frustrated by his apparent lack of success in figuring out the problem.

"Maybe she just needs a break from it," Owen suggested. "You said she's been pretty busy at the Academy, between Nova Squadron, track, her research, and just going to class everyday. She's probably just tired."

Tom wasn't buying it, but his father didn't really know B'Elanna, so it was pointless to argue. "Maybe," he conceded, knowing the word sounded empty.

"She mentioned that she's interested in learning how to ice climb," Owen said as they stepped off the platform at the top of the slope. "Why don't you two go tomorrow, and you can ask her about it then? And," he added, seeing the dubious expression on Tom's face. "I'll go ahead and give Alex Chapman a call tomorrow and see if maybe something's going on with her research that has her frustrated."

"Sounds good," Tom replied, pleased that his father was taking this seriously. "Thanks." He grinned as he adjusted his ski goggles. "Race you to the bottom!" Without waiting for a reply, he launched himself forward. After taking only a few seconds to process his son's words, Owen took off after him.

---

"So," Tom said as he dug his spiked toe into the ice, trying to create a foothold. "How's the squad?"

B'Elanna grunted as she pulled herself up along the sheer face of rock and ice. "Do you mind if we talk about something else?" she asked, a touch of annoyance in her voice. Despite the lightweight thermal clothing, she still felt chilled to the bone, her fingers so numb she wondered how she managed to grip anything at all.

"Actually, I do mind," Tom snapped back, sounding more angry than he planned. "I was on Nova Squadron for three years, and even though I'm not anymore, it's still something important to me, and I thought it was something important to you, too. You haven't said anything about it for weeks, and I want to know why."

"What do you want to know?" Torres asked bitterly as she kicked the ice with her toe harder than anticipated. She bit her lip to keep from grunting from the waves of pain that resulted. "The part about the pilots and the engineers not getting along, or the part about how everyone seems to think I'm constantly within seconds of breaking someone's jaw?"

"What are you talking about?" Paris asked with a frown as he glanced down at her. "What have the pilots been doing? Is it the new ones?"

"It's all of them," she shot back as she pulled herself up. "The new ones are pretty decent as pilots, but still learning the ropes. Albert seems to want to be the next Locarno; he follows him around like he's his damn shadow. Crusher isn't bad. He at least talks to the engineers as if we're real people. He apparently lived on the _Enterprise_ for a few years with his mother, thought he knew everything about Klingons because he worked with Lt. Worf. I set him straight pretty quickly."

"I bet," Paris muttered with a chuckle, earning him a glare he didn't see as he searched for another hand hold.

"Sito's fine, of course," Torres continued, grunting as her foot slipped from its hold. "And Locarno is still the same—self-absorbed, all-important, dealing with the engineers only when he has to, and even then, almost always directly with Jacks. It's Hajar who's been making me want to single-handedly throw one of the crafts against the hangar door."

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me," Paris commented, remembering how the pilot and engineer often had an icy silence between them.

"I spent three hours the Tuesday night of finals week fixing her navigational array instead of studying for my exobiology final," Torres continued as if she hadn't heard him, her voice rising in anger. "I made sure _I_ did it and took the extra time because she really messed it up and not all of the engineers would know how to fix it right, and then she goes and busts it again on Wednesday and doesn't report it. Then at practice on Thursday, she nearly collides with Locarno, and then comes to me yelling about how _I_ didn't do _my_ job, and she nearly died because of _my_ sloppiness!" Paris winced at her words. He knew that Torres took incredible pride in her work, not reporting a repair as complete until she was certain that it was perfect. For someone to accuse her work of being sloppy was to insult her personally.

"And then she yells at Jacks for not doing _his_ job when he confronted her about not filling out a maintenance request," she continued. "She had the audacity to say that _we_ work for _them_. Jacks tried to set her straight, but she wouldn't have any of it. Then after she left, Jacks scolded _me_ for losing my temper! _She_ was the one who came to me yelling about me not doing my job, I was only defending myself!

"If it were just that one time, I wouldn't think anything of it," she continued without taking so much as a breath. "But it's been like this since before try-outs. The pilots think they can order the engineers around, and Jacks just lies down and takes it! I'm just so frustrated with it. It's not like last year at all, it's not fun at all." She finally paused from her tirade to take a breath as she searched for a hand hold. "I'm thinking of dropping it."

At that moment, Tom Paris was grateful for the fact he had just put his weight on a flat shelf; if he hadn't, he probably would have lost his grip on the mountain in surprise. "Dropping the squad?" he managed. "But you're the best engineer I ever worked with!"

She rolled her eyes as she pulled herself up to where he was standing. "You forgot about Siobhan already?"

"Siobhan's good, and she's a good leader, but you're a better engineer," he said truthfully. "You can't forget about that just because a handful of self-centered pilots don't recognize how much they depend on you."

"That's easy for you to say, you don't know what it's like!" she shot back, glaring at him.

"Then tell me!" he yelled back. "You're always saying I don't understand, but you never explain. I'm never going to know what you're talking about unless you tell me!"

She glared at him, but he just stood there, crossing his arms over his chest to let her know that he wasn't intimidated. "You've always fit in. You're Mr. Life-of-the-party, best-damn-pilot-in-the-Fleet. You don't know what it's like to have everyone watching your every move, waiting for you to mess something up just so they can say that they always knew you couldn't make it. Everyone looks at me and knows that I'm different without me ever saying a damn thing, everyone expects me to be something that I'm not. At any given moment, I don't know if I'm expected to be Klingon, or human, or Starfleet, an engineer, a cadet, a member of Nova Squadron, a decathlete on the track team. I don't know what people want me to be!"

"And you think I don't understand what that's like?" he replied. "Everyone has been watching me since I was five years old and competing in flight simulators. People wondered if I was really as good as I seemed, or if it was all some trick to make the Paris family look even more impressive. I am the only son of my grandfather's only son; I _am_ the Paris family legacy. People look at me and see the next Admiral Paris, the next decorated Starfleet officer. Deep down inside, people look at me and hope that I'll mess this up, for no other reason than giving them an excuse feel better about themselves, to say that if someone from such a family can fail, that it's okay if they do, too. Everyone expects me to be something spectacular, either a great officer or a great failure, and I don't know how to do that."

His words did nothing to calm her; if anything, she was more incensed. "Only someone who had so little of a clue would think that he understood what my life is like!" she yelled, her eyes flashing.

He threw his hands in the air in defeat. "There is nothing that I can say to make you feel better, is there? If I say I understand, you tell me that that's a sign of how _little_ I understand! If I say you're right, you feel like you're the only one in world going through what you're going through. If I don't say anything, I'm an insensitive pig who doesn't know what to say! Why do I even bother trying, if you're never going to appreciate the effort? What's the point in trying to be your friend if you just keep pushing me away?" He punctuated that last question by driving in the piton. He looked at her expectantly, and when she didn't say anything, he shrugged and backed off the ledge, beginning his descent.


	8. Chapter 8

December

Admiral Owen Paris glanced at the young cadet on the other side of the living room and sighed inwardly. He didn't know what had happened on the climb, but five hours before, Tom and B'Elanna had returned from their outing not speaking to each other, and both went into their bedrooms and stayed there alone until it was time for dinner. Sitting across the table from each other in stony silence, the tension was almost palpable, noticed by even the youngest family members. Now she was curled up in front of the fire, her slight frame folded in the large sitting chair. She was reading from a PADD, almost glaring at whatever was on the screen as if it were the cause of the world's problems.

"I was wondering if you could answer a question for me," he prefaced, taking a seat on the couch next to her chair. She glanced at him expectantly, but didn't say anything. "I was under the impression that the current power transfer grids process plasma exhaust to 98% of the theoretical maximum, but a recent conversation I had with Alex Chapman has made me doubt that."

"They're not that efficient," Torres replied without missing a beat. "The published theoretical maximums are based on 22nd century impulse drives, but we've made a number of improvements since then. Theoretically, I believe we could get about 150% of what they got then. The problem is, while our impulse drives have improved significantly, our EPS conduits haven't. I mean, they're better, but not that much better."

He nodded slowly. "So to improve the energy output of modern engines, we need to focus our attention on the EPS conduits, not the fusion reaction itself."

"Exactly," she replied. "It doesn't make much of a difference on starships, because most of the energy goes into the warp coils, not the impulse drive, and warp plasma is processed differently than the exhaust produced at impulse. In sublight crafts, though, improvements in the EPS conduits could go into other systems, such as the maneuverability thrusters, to improve efficiency. That's what we're focusing on in Chapman's lab."

"That's what Alex told me. He also said that you have a theory on redirecting the exhaust manifolds to increase efficiency."

She nodded. "It's just a theory, though. We haven't figured out a way to take it to the testing stage." She cocked her head slightly to the side. "Why do you ask?"

"I oversee the science and technological divisions of Starfleet," he replied. "I like to stay abreast of advances that can improve the fleet, and with my son now working for the spacecraft division of Research and Development, I've found myself more inclined to improve my knowledge in that area." He paused thoughtfully. "Alex had great things to say about your research. He said you're one of the brightest cadets he's worked with."

She frowned slightly. "He said that?" she asked dubiously. "He's always arguing with my theories and pointing out exactly why they won't work. In class, he was always quick to point out where I was wrong whenever I spoke up. I was under the impression he couldn't wait to get rid of me."

That got a laugh from the Admiral. "Hardly. I think you'd be surprised by the number of teachers who appreciate a good intellectual debate based on sound reasoning and strong thinking."

She raised her eyebrows, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Including you?" she asked.

"I always appreciate a good debate. Sometimes an argument can have some real cleansing properties, good for everyone involved, although sometimes some egos can be bruised. There's a line of mutual respect that everyone has to be careful not to cross." He gave her a meaningful look that made her flush slightly. Her eyes went unconsciously to the upstairs bedrooms, but Admiral Paris didn't comment. "Well, thank you for the clarification on the power transfer grids." He rose from his chair and headed back toward the kitchen.

"What was your area of study? I mean, before you went into command," Torres asked. He paused and turned back to her.

"Astrological phenomena," he replied. "I wrote my doctorate on the potential for converting matter from various classes of nebulae into usable forms of energy. Why?"

"It'll take quite a bit of research, but I'll get back to you on a debate over the topic," she replied before she smiled and went back to her reading.

He stared at her for a moment, oddly touched by her words. None of his own children had ever taken an interest in his research.

---

"Do you want to help with the pancakes?" B'Elanna could only blink at the words, trying to comprehend their meaning. _How is anybody alert first thing in the morning?_ she asked herself. Then again, Linssay Houston was only eight years old, and children always seemed to have way more energy than they should.

"I don't know how to make pancakes," she finally replied. She smiled graciously as Alicia Paris handed her a mug of coffee, and all but collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table. "It's quiet this morning," she said with a frown a minute later.

"Jeremy and Robert arrived at 0400 this morning," Ensign Elisabeth Houston explained. "So the guys all got up to ski until the sun came up. It's some sort of tradition they have. They should be getting back soon."

"Skiing in the dark?" B'Elanna asked with a frown. "Isn't that dangerous?"

Elisabeth snorted. "And hence the appeal. They're supposedly 'taking every precaution'," she said, making quotation marks with her fingers even as she was turning the bacon. "They have wrist lights and are supposed to all wearing their combadges so they can reach me if any of them do anything stupid." Elisabeth, the younger of the Paris daughters, was a second-year medical student at Starfleet Medical Academy; before that, she had been a nurse, and even before that, she had been a field medic as an enlisted crewmember.

"I like your hair," Linssay said to B'Elanna, reaching out tentatively to touch one of the curls that had worked its way out of the long braid.

"That's the first time I've been complimented on my hair before I've taken a shower," Torres quipped to Alicia, who was watching the encounter with her eyebrows raised.

"How do you get it so curly?" Linssay asked, oblivious to the amusement of all the adults.

"It does that on its own," B'Elanna replied to the girl, who frowned at the explanation.

"Mom, why isn't my hair curly?" she asked Elisabeth.

"Because both of your parents have boring, straight hair," she replied with a smile.

Just then, the men returned from their morning skiing expedition, practically tripping over each other as they made their way into the kitchen. "Is breakfast ready yet?" Lt. Jeremy Houston asked, leaning over to kiss his wife.

"Your face is cold," she replied, pushing him away. "And it will be in about two minutes, if you guys all get out of here and let us finish. Come on, out!" she scolded, waving her hand toward the kitchen door.

"Can we at least get some coffee?" Tom asked, his expression hopeful as he headed for the door. He glanced over at Torres as if to gauge her reaction before again addressing the entire room. "It's cold out there!"

"I'll get it. I'm not doing anything anyway," B'Elanna replied as she finished her own coffee and got up to get the mugs. As she removed five mugs from the cabinet, she was suddenly aware that she was still in her pajamas, her hair in disarray from sleep. She flushed slightly, then realized that the other women were also in pajamas and robes, looking equally disheveled. Still, it didn't make her feel any more comfortable.

"You look like you just woke up, Torres," Tom said with a smirk as she poured his coffee.

"You don't look so hot yourself, Paris," she retorted. His face was still pink from the cold and the wind, his hair sticking out in every direction.

"Yeah, but I got up early and have been working out for the past four hours. What have you been doing?"

"Discussing hairstyles with Linssay," she replied dryly.

"I think her hair's pretty," the eight-year-old elaborated as she placed the plate of bacon on the table.

"You want to hear a secret, Lins?" Tom asked with a grin, pulling the small blond child closer to him. "I think it's pretty, too," he said with a wink, his voice low but loud enough that everyone could hear. B'Elanna felt her face flush, but didn't say anything in reply.

"So what are everyone's plans for the day?" Alicia asked as she brought out the last of the food and sat down.

"I was going to get some sleep and then take Linssay and Parker sledding this afternoon," Jeremy Houston commented.

"Can you teach me how to braid my hair before then?" Linssay asked B'Elanna, her face excited. She raised her eyebrows in surprise at the request, but Tom jumped in before she could form a reply.

"What about me?" he asked with a grin. "Can you braid my hair, too?"

Linssay giggled. "Your hair's too short, Tom. You're silly."

"Yeah, I know," he replied. "Anyway, I was planning on hitting the slopes again after breakfast. Torres, you want to join me?"

She shook her head. "I wanted to spend some time going over some of the data from my last experiments. Chapman wanted a report on it as soon as I returned to campus. Besides, don't you need sleep?"

He waved aside that last question dismissively. "Nah, I have coffee, I'm good. And we still have five more days of break, there's still time for you to write your report. Come on, just for a few hours, then I'll leave you alone to look at data all afternoon. Please?"

She rolled her eyes, but gave in to that pleading expression on his face. Sometimes he looked just like a little kid. And acted like one. "Fine. But you have to leave me alone all afternoon."

"Deal," he declared. "From lunch until we leave for dinner, you won't hear a single word from me, I promise."

She snorted. "You couldn't if you tried."

"Willing to put a wager on that?" he countered. The other adults looked on, clearly amused.

"Okay," she declared. "If I win, you don't get to bug me about going skiing with you for the rest of break."

"Fine," he replied. "And if I win, you owe me a date of my choosing."

Her eyes narrowed perceptively as she considered it. "Sounds good. But I'm only agreeing because I know you won't make it." He just smirked and took another bite of his pancake in reply.


	9. Chapter 9

December

B'Elanna was sitting in front of the fire, still trying to warm up after her morning of skiing, staring at a long column of numbers and trying to figure out why they didn't look right, when she felt a slight tugging at her sleeve. She put down the PADD to find herself looking right into Linssay Houston's big blue eyes.

"Dad says we're going to go outside in about half an hour. Is that enough time to braid my hair?"

Torres raised her eyebrows at the question. She had hoped that the eight-year-old would forget about her request to have B'Elanna braid her hair; apparently, she hadn't. She sighed, wondering if her continued good standing with the Paris family depended on fulfilling Linssay's request. She figured it wasn't worth the risk to find out and conceded. "Yeah, that should be enough time. I need a hairbrush and a few hair bands." The girl held the items up, clearly anticipating the needs. "Okay," Torres said with a sigh, wondering how to go about doing this. She had never braided anyone else's hair before. "Why don't you kneel on the ground here, in front of my chair, right, like that, so your head is in a good position."

Elisabeth looked up from her seat at the opposite side of the room and headed over. "Do you mind if I watch? I never learned how to do a proper French braid, and I have a feeling Lins is going to want me to learn."

"Sure," B'Elanna replied, wondering why she was doing this as she took the hairbrush. "Do you want one braid or two?"

"You can do two?" Linssay asked, her eyes wide. "I want two."

B'Elanna parted the hair down the middle and tied one half off with one of the bands Linssay provided. "You start with a small section right at the forehead," she explained to Elisabeth as she began sectioning the fine blond hair. "Linssay, be sure to tell me if I pull too tightly, I'm not used to braiding other people's hair."

"Okay," she replied. As B'Elanna worked the hair, she winced a few times, but didn't say anything. Tom watched from the doorway as Torres worked her fingers through the young girl's hair, explaining what she was doing to Elisabeth as she was going. She still wasn't completely comfortable around his nieces and nephew, but had improved a great deal over the past week; there was no way she would have sat down to braid Linssay's hair before they left for France. In fact, he was impressed she was doing it then.

"Did your mom used to braid your hair like this?" Linssay asked, trying her hardest to remain still as B'Elanna worked.

"No, my mom didn't like it when my hair was braided." It was one of the many things that Miral Torres had declared to be 'too human' for her daughter. B'Elanna had taught herself how to braid her hair when she was thirteen just so she could annoy her mother. "She said it looked better when it was just down and curly. She _really_ didn't like it when I made my hair straight."

"Why did you want to straighten it?" Linssay asked, making a face. "Straight hair is so boring. I wish mine was curly like yours."

Elisabeth chuckled. "I used to want really curly hair, too. Tell you what, Lins. Before we go out to dinner tonight, I'll put curls in your hair. It won't be like B'Elanna's, but it won't be straight like it is now, either."

"Really?" Linssay's eyes went wide at the idea, making Torres chuckle as she tied off the second braid. She caught Tom's eye when she rose to return to her seat and raised her eyebrows at him, a slight smile on her face, before picking up the PADD and getting back to her work. She knew he was itching to say something but didn't want to lose on the bet less than two hours after eating lunch. Instead, he stood behind her chair, looking over her shoulder at the display on the larger data PADD. It was a fairly complicated looking diagram, complete with equations he couldn't begin to understand. He frowned slightly as he watched her make corrections to those equations. He didn't know how her mind worked, but it was obviously on a completely different level than his own.

"Why did you just start to work on this today?" he asked, moving to take a seat on the couch. "You've probably had this for weeks."

She glanced at him, her eyebrows raised as she checked the chronometer on her PADD. "Two hours and three minutes. I'm impressed you lasted this long."

He shrugged. "Curiosity killed the cat, I guess. So, why now? You usually can't wait to analyze your results and get started designing your next experiment."

"I wasn't planning on going back," she said matter-of-factly.

"To Chapman's lab?"

"To the Academy," she clarified, glancing at him quickly to gauge his reaction before returning to her work.

"I didn't realize things were that terrible for you there," he replied softly. "You didn't tell me."

"You were on Mars," she retorted. She softened a bit, then added with a shrug, "I don't tell you everything that happens to me. Nova Squadron hasn't been very much fun, classes are classes, and I didn't think Chapman even wanted me around."

"So what changed your mind?"

She thought about that for a moment. "I guess when I talked to your father last night," she admitted. "When he told me that Chapman thinks I have a lot of potential. Nobody really ever said that before."

"Siobhan and I have said it thousands of times," he argued.

"Yeah, but that's you and Siobhan. You don't know much more than what's covered in the introductory engineering courses, and Siobhan was just trying to keep me around for the squad. This is the first time someone who is considered an expert in the field has actually given me any sort of praise or indicated that I even have a chance."

"I know it's not much, but I always knew you had a chance," he replied.

She sighed. "I know. And I'm sorry for what I said yesterday, about you not understanding. It's just… it's just that it's so _hard_, to try to fit in. Most people at the Academy have never really met any Klingons, and so when they look at me, they just think about what they've heard, about how Klingons are mean and vicious, incapable of controlling their most basal emotions and always looking for a fight. The look of surprise on people's faces when they realize that I know what I'm talking about is almost universal."

"You need to give people a chance to get to know you. After awhile, they'll see more than just the ridges."

She studied him for a moment, waiting for him to make his trademark joke. "So what do you see when you look at me?"

He returned the stare, not saying anything for several long minutes. "I see a beautiful woman with a mind that is working at a level mine can't even comprehend."

"Tom…" she said warily.

"Sorry. I know. You asked, though," he replied, giving her a quirky smile that failed to reach his eyes. He stood from his seat. "I'll let you get back to your work. Do you need someone to remind you when it's getting close to time to leave for dinner, so you have time to get ready?"

"I'll be sure to watch the chronometer," she replied softly, studying him for some sort of reaction. They continued to watch each other silently for a minute before Torres shook her head almost imperceptibly. "Now get out of here so I can get some work done."


	10. Chapter 10

January

"Sir, I have the report on my last experiments," Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres said, standing stiffly at attention in front of Admiral Alexander Chapman's desk. It was the first day of the spring semester, less than twelve hours after she, Winat Gial, and the extended Paris family returned from their winter vacation in the French Alps, and after almost two weeks away from her experiments, she found herself actually looking forward to getting back to the lab. She hadn't dared share that information with Paris, knowing he would tease her mercilessly about her inability to relax.

"Very well," he replied, taking the PADD she offered. "Have a seat, Cadet."

She sat in the only chair in his office not covered by PADDs or models of impulse drive systems and waited as he glanced at her report. He had a tendency to do that, to forget what he was doing when something else caught his interest. She had learned to try to be patient when he wanted to talk to her.

He placed the PADD on his desk and gave her his full attention. "You're not taking any of my classes this semester." It was a statement of fact, not a question.

"No, sir," she replied. "I'm taking a few general requirements and Warp Mechanics."

He nodded; he knew that, he had helped her plan her schedule. "I'm teaching the second half of the required engineering introductory series. I'd like you to tutor."

She frowned. "Sir, I never took the introductory series."

"I know," he replied. "You tested out of them, and for good reason."

"I'm not sure I'm the right person to be tutoring students. I don't have much patience."

He chuckled. "I've noticed," he replied dryly. "I think this would be a good experience for you, Cadet. Consider it practice for when you become Chief Engineer." She blinked, not sure what he was saying. Did he mean chief of the Nova Squadron engineering team, or did he think that she would become a Chief Engineer on a ship someday? "It's not a large commitment," he continued. "Most of the students who need tutoring don't request it, and those who do don't really need it."

"Yes, sir," she said, not sure if that was the proper response.

"There's another matter I wanted to discuss with you," he continued. "The Jameson competition."

"What about it?" she asked, wondering if any of her past entries to the Federation's most prestigious secondary school engineering competition was being contested.

"I'd like you to be the student judge at this year's competition," he finished.

She frowned. "I thought that always went to a senior," she replied. "Didn't Ensign Patel judge the competition last year?"

"Yes, she did," Chapman confirmed. "And the honor traditionally does go to a first classman, but only because most people win the award their senior year of secondary school, and the first invite to be the student judge always goes to the most senior award recipient still in school. That would be you, since you were a sophomore the first time you won the award."

"Oh," she replied. "So it's mine by default?"

He frowned. "You don't have to take it if you don't want it. I'm sure they'll find someone else willing."

"No, no, it's not that," she said quickly. "I just didn't think I had done enough research to have something interesting to present at the closing ceremonies." Not to mention the other time commitments she had that semester, but Chapman knew about those. She figured he wouldn't be giving her more than she could handle.

"The competition is still a few months away," he reminded her gently. "That gives us plenty of time to come up with a good presentation of the research you've done so far. Now, I would love to discuss this with you further, but I believe you have Officership 3 beginning in fifteen minutes, and showing up late to the first day of class is not the sign of a good officer."

---

March

Every once in awhile, the engineers sitting in the Nova Squadron engineering office would glance at the monitors surrounding them, only to go back to what they were doing. The monitors held information regarding the pilots flying a few kilometers overhead, but nothing exciting ever happened when they practiced at the Earth flight range. That was where they worked on the routine details, like making sure they all remembered how to fly in a straight line. The maneuvers that they were famous for at the Academy were only practiced at the Academy Flight Range near Saturn, which had better safety protocols and facilities capable of handling even the most aggressive stunts.

"One of the crafts is coming in," Cadet First Class Sean Kelley, the deputy chief engineer, commented in a bored tone as he went back to whatever was on his PADD.

"Looks like Crusher," Chief Engineer Jacks replied. "Wonder what he did. Usually it's Hajar who manages to do enough damage to have to come in during practice."

"Only because she never bothers to tell us when the problem is small enough for us to fix," Torres commented dryly without looking up. "At least we won't be getting yelled at. Crusher's pretty calm."

"The eagle has landed," Kelley said after the monitor indicated that the craft had arrived in the hangar.

"Okay, everyone, look alive. We don't want the pilots to find out how little we do in here," Jacks said, his deep voice not sounding any less bored. The other engineers just laughed and didn't make any effort to move; the pilots already knew that they didn't do anything while the crafts were away.

Cadet Third Class Wesley Crusher stepped out of his shuttle and sighed. It hadn't been a very good day to begin with, and having to ground his craft in the middle of practice didn't make it any better. And now he would have to face the engineers, who were fiercely protective of those ships. He stepped into the engineering office, the doors sliding open as he approached. He expected to see the engineers on duty to be watching the monitors closely, giving each other updates from across the room. Instead, he found four of the Squad's ten engineers in the office, doing little more than lounging in front of the monitors, probably working on homework. "Um, I had a problem with my craft," he began once he realized that none of the four were going to acknowledge his presence.

"We figured that," Chief Engineer Jacks replied. "Locarno gets upset when his pilots come in without a reason. What can we do for you?"

"Well, I think I blew out my entire EPS relay," he said hesitantly. He caught the look that passed between Jacks and Torres and added quickly, "I don't know what I did, but the consoles started flashing, and—"

"Torres'll take a look at it," Jacks interrupted, even as the half-Klingon engineer was already out of her chair, heading for her toolkit.

Crusher frowned. He had never worked with Torres and had received mixed messages from the other pilots about her. Sito and Locarno said she was pretty good, but Hajar didn't have a high opinion of her at all. "Are you sure you don't want to take a look at it? I think the damage is pretty extensive."

"If the problem has anything to do with the impulse drive, especially the EPS conduits, Torres is your engineer," Jacks informed him, already back to his PADD. Torres, her toolkit in hand, brushed past him.

"You coming?" she asked brusquely.

He took a deep breath as he followed her out of the office toward his craft. The first time he met the engineer, he tried to forge a bond by talking about Lt. Worf, but she had gotten angry and told him, very coldly, that he shouldn't think that he knew everything about all Klingons because he happened to live on the same ship where the one Klingon Starfleet officer worked. He tried to stay off her bad side ever since. He was still trying to figure out if there was a good side.

"What were you doing when you first noticed a problem?" she asked as she ducked into the craft and headed for the engineering panel.

"Um, we were working on spirals when my panels began blinking," he said.

"What speed?" she asked, trying to power up the panel without any success. She muttered something in Klingon under her breath and reached for her toolkit.

"Five thousand kph," he replied. "Or close to that."

"Kinda slow," she remarked as she opened up the access panel.

"There's a speed limit that close to Earth," he replied. She nodded absently as she flipped open a tricorder.

"Hmm," she murmured absently as she scanned. She turned to him. "Do you have much experience with EPS relays?"

"I had some experience working in engineering on the _Enterprise_," he said, hoping that would mean something.

She grunted softly. "Well, I don't know what you did there, but I'll show you what to do here. Hand me the hypospanner. Okay, you need to adjust the outflow of each of the conduits. Now, some of the conduits, like this one, are fused, so it'll have to be replaced. For the ones that are salvageable, it's a fairly simple repair," she explained, being sure to work slower than she normally would so he wouldn't miss anything she was doing. "Now, while you get started on that, I'm going to take a look at your exhaust manifolds and impulse drivers. Power grids don't usually fail on their own, so I'd be willing to bet that you have a bigger problem somewhere down the line."

"Wonderful," he muttered as he took the hypospanner and began to work as she demonstrated. She took her tricorder near the back of the craft and opened another panel and began scanning.

"Did you happen to catch what the assignment for Interspecies Protocol is for tomorrow?" he asked after a few moments of working in silence.

"Hmm?" she asked, her head half-buried in the panel.

"Interspecies Protocol," he repeated. "I didn't catch what Professor Isaacs said in the last few minutes."

"I didn't know you were in the class," she commented.

"Yeah, I sit near the back," he replied with a chuckle.

"Ah," she replied. "I didn't catch the assignment, either. I don't usually pay attention to that class, I just work on my assignments for my other classes and try to keep my ears open for any relevant words that indicate that I should pay attention."

"I don't know, some of what he says is pretty interesting," Crusher argued lightly. "What should I do when I come across a fused conduit?"

"Just leave it," Torres replied, searching her toolkit for her micro laser cutter. "We'll take care of it later. I'm not trying to turn you into an engineer, just teach you some of the basics of ship repair. A pilot once told me that any good pilot should know how to do some of the more simple maintenance on his ship."

"So this is going to make me a better pilot?"

"It'll make you get along better with your engineers."

"I wasn't aware I _wasn't_ getting along with the engineers."

She chuckled. "There's always room for improvement. How are you coming over there?"

"I'm about halfway done," he replied. "I'm surprised you don't find Interspecies Protocol more interesting, since you're—"

"Don't say it, Crusher," Torres warned. "Just forget the thought ever crossed your mind, and move on."

He frowned. "I don't see what the big deal is—"

"Crusher," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "You know how I just said there's always room for improvement? Start with learning when to stop talking. Can you hand me the degausser?" He passed her the small tool, watching as she ran it over the isolinear chip she had just extracted as he tried to figure out what to say.

She swore softly after scanned the now-degaussed chip with her tricorder. "Yeah, just what I thought. Your impulse drivers are corrupted." Seeing the crestfallen look on his face, she quickly added, "It's not your fault, it just happens sometimes with these older systems. Unfortunately, it's going to take almost a week to fix. I'll have to check with Jacks, but I think the alternate shuttle is ready to go. You can use that while we work on this."

"A week?" he repeated. "Are you sure it's going to take that long?"

"If that's what she says, that's how long it'll take," a third voice asked from the open shuttle door. Both cadets turned quickly to see a tall, blond ensign leaning against the shuttle, a cocky grin on his face. "Torres doesn't overestimate on her repairs to make herself look good. She doesn't need to."

"Paris," Torres stated, surprised. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"It's good to see you, too, Torres," he replied with a grin.

"No, I mean, what are you doing on Earth? Aren't you supposed to be flying around in the new shuttles at Utopia Planitia?"

"We finished up that phase of the project, so we're back in San Francisco for the next phase," he explained.

She looked at him, aghast. "We've talked on the comm just about every other night for the past two months, and you didn't once mention that you're coming back to San Francisco?"

"And miss that adorable surprised expression on your face?" he smirked. "What would be the fun in that?" He turned to Cadet Crusher and extended his hand. "Hi. Ensign Tom Paris," he offered.

"Cadet Wesley Crusher," he replied. "I've heard quite a few stories about you, sir. The other pilots still talk about you a lot. Some of the engineers do, too."

Paris glanced at Torres with his eyebrows raised, and she snorted. "Don't look at me. Ferreras and Kelley are always telling the younger engineers about how they would spend entire nights in the hangars trying to make your wild ideas work."

"Ferreras and Kelley spent nights in the hangar alright, but they weren't making shuttle improvements," Paris countered with a grin. "So, you up for some dinner?"

Torres shook her head. "Not tonight. I'm meeting with Sito and some other classmates about our Officership 3 group assignment at 2100, and I wanted to take a look at my Warp Mechanics homework before that. Crusher just informed me that I have an assignment for Interspecies Protocol to do, and you just heard me say I have a week's worth of repairs on this tin can. I'm swamped."

"It's Monday," he pointed out. "We had a deal."

"I think the deal was contingent on you informing me when you would be around," she argued as she stepped out the craft, Crusher following.

"You still have three hours until 2100," he replied. "Knowing you, your assignment for Warp Mechanics isn't due for another two weeks and it'll probably only take you two hours, three max. It'll take half an hour to fill out an engineering report for the repairs, and you can't get started on them until Jacks looks over the report. And since when did you need to do homework for Interspecies Protocol? You're coming in with all sorts of knowledge that your classmates don't have."

She glared at him. "Don't you get started on Interspecies Protocol, too. I've already got enough of that from him," she said, jerking a thumb toward Crusher.

"I didn't mean—" Crusher started to protest.

"Stop!" she exclaimed, holding up a hand. "For the third time, my life, and my parents', is none of your concerns."

"She's a little sensitive about being half-Klingon," Paris explained to Crusher with a smile.

The glare deepened. "You're not helping," she snapped, then sighed. She took a deep breath as she counted to ten, first in Standard, then in Klingon. "Crusher, we're done here, you can either go or wait for the pilots to come in, I don't care," she said, struggling to keep her voice even. "Paris, I'm going to go to the office to fill out that engineering report. After I'm done there, I'll let you know about dinner, if you're still interested."

"Oh, I'm interested," he smirked. "I'll be in the pilot's office, getting caught up on life in Squad. Come on, Cadet, I bet you have some good stories to share," he said, clasping Crusher's shoulder as he guided the younger man toward his old office. Torres rolled her eyes as she watched them walk away, then headed for her part of the hangar.


	11. Chapter 11

March

"So, tell me about this tutoring gig," Tom said right before he took another bite of pizza. After turning her engineering report to Jacks, Torres reluctantly agreed to dinner, but only if they could stay on campus. Since Tom had been craving Academy pizza for months since he left for Mars, it wasn't a hard sale.

"It's not that big of a deal," B'Elanna replied, barely glancing up from the PADD she was reading. "Nobody comes in for help. Chapman just assigned me my first student. He says that the kid's pretty smart, but has no backbone. He needs to learn how to be more confident and assertive with his work, and apparently Chapman thinks I can teach confidence and assertiveness."

"Well, when it comes to engineering, they're two things you don't lack," Paris agreed, grabbing another slice, ignoring the glare Torres was giving him.

"What do you mean, when it comes to engineering?" she demanded.

He swallowed. "I'm just saying, you know your work, and you make sure everyone knows that. You just aren't as confident when it comes to other things, like your general classes or your ability to be a good officer. Or your friendships."

She frowned. "Well, you've managed to stick around."

"With you kicking and screaming the entire time."

"That better not be a Klingon joke."

"Oh, I wouldn't dare."

She glowered briefly at him, then changed the subject. "Learn anything interesting from the pilots?"

"Yeah, Locarno gave me their flight plan for Rigel. It's good. Really good. I hope he has the pilots to pull it off; I wish I could have done a routine like that when I was leading the squad."

"He does," Torres replied. "They've done well at the smaller competitions. It's not necessarily that they're better pilots than you had last year, but they work really well together. I get the vibe from them that any one of them would be willing to sacrifice themselves to save the others. And I hate to admit it, but Hajar's a pretty good navigator. Better than Ryan was."

"Yeah, I knew he wasn't that great at it," Paris admitted. "But he's my best friend and was the only other first classman on the Squad, so I couldn't _not_ make him the navigator. Besides, we both know Locarno would have done a terrible job."

"Very true," Torres admitted, taking another bite of pizza as she scrolled through her PADD. "This reading assignment for Interspecies Protocol makes no sense."

"So ignore it," Paris replied with a shrug. "Half of the questions on the exam you can get right by answering 'not without the permission of the CMO and CO.'"

"There's more to the class than just sex."

"Not much," Paris replied. "What's your Officership assignment about?"

She sighed and picked up another PADD. "Away team protocols. We're supposed to do two skits, one following proper procedure, and one demonstrating a lack of proper leadership, and then explain what went wrong, what protocols were ignored, how to rectify the situation, and the proper punishments that should be given out to the offending away team members."

"Sounds like fun," Paris said truthfully. "I remember those skits. You get to do even more of them in Officership 4."

"Great," she muttered. "I'm not a fan of acting or working in a group."

"Working in a group is part of being Starfleet. That's one of the points of these classes. That, and to bore you to tears learning about the endless list of Starfleet protocols. Did you know that they have rules about how many Federation credits can be used while bartering for items of both personal and ship-wide use?"

"Article 119, section 8a," Torres replied without missing a beat. She smiled at his astonished expression. "I took that class a lot more recently than you did."

"Still, that's impressive," he replied. "Maybe you should forget about being an engineer and go into the JAG corps with Gial."

"Right," she said, rolling her eyes as she went back to her PADD, this time for her Warp Mechanics course. "So, tell me about this new and improved Class 2 shuttle you've been working on."

"It's so different, we've nicknamed it the 'Three'," he joked.

"Is it any bigger?"

He frowned. "No…"

"Well, if it doesn't do anything for Class 2 Claustrophobia, I'm not interested," she said, turning back to her PADD.

"The big changes are in the engines and navigational systems. I'll bring you the specs next week. If you're not impressed, you have no business going into propulsion engineering." He glanced down at one of her PADDs and checked the chronometer. "I should probably get going and let you get to your homework. Plus, I still have an apartment to unpack. Again. For the third time in less than a year."

"Don't give me that. You love your job," Torres said with an eye roll.

"Yeah, I do," he grinned, getting up from the table. "Eight weeks until Rigel," he said, a typical good-bye among Nova Squadron members.

"I know," she grumbled. "It'll be a rush to get ready in time."

"You'll be fine," he replied reassuringly as he turned to leave. "Oh, and Torres?" he said, turning back.

"Yeah?"

"Go easy on Crusher," he said with a smirk. "I think he has a bit of a thing for you." She glowered at him as he ducked out of the Union building laughing.

---

Two weeks later, they were back at the Academy for dinner, this time at the Replimat. Like they had in many meals they shared together, they both lapsed into silence, each working on their own PADDs as if the other person wasn't there.

"You going to Saturn this weekend?" Ensign Tom Paris asked without looking up from the flight plan he was working on.

"Not this weekend. I have a track meet," Cadet B'Elanna Torres replied with a grimace. "With Rigel coming early this year, I don't know how I'm going to manage track meets and Nova Squadron practices. I don't think I'm going to do track next year, or if I do, I might run JV instead. Fewer required meets."

"Your coach will be disappointed."

"He'll get over it." She made a face as she thumbed through her reading on her PADD. "Seriously, could they have found worse a worse article to describe problems with human and Bolian mating?"

He chuckled. "Don't worry, the ones on human/Klingon matings are much more interesting." He looked up to see a vicious glare coming from across the table and shrugged. "You're going to cover it soon enough, might as well prepare yourself."

"Maybe I'll get an excused absence from those lectures. The last thing I need to think about is my parents having sex." She sighed and set the PADD aside. "Enough Interspecies Protocol. I have to give my presentation at the Jameson competition in two weeks."

"You'll do fine," he replied, getting back to his own work. "You know more about impulse engines than most Fleet engineers."

She grunted as she checked over her last series of results, looking for any inconsistencies. They continued to work in silence for a few more minutes.

"Um, sir?" a shaky voice asked from beside their table. Both looked up quickly at the words, then Paris realized that, in civilian clothes, not many people would know that he was an ensign. He smirked as he went back to his work.

"What do you need, Kim?" Torres asked in a tired voice.

"Sir, I was hoping that we could reschedule our tutoring session for next Sunday. I have tickets to a Ktarian music festival, and I've been really looking forward to it," the nervous young cadet managed, clearly looking uncomfortable with the fact that he was interrupting a senior cadet's dinner.

Torres sighed. "Cadet, you don't _need_ tutoring. You know this stuff." Seeing his dubious expression, she sighed again. "When were you thinking?"

"Would Monday night work for you?"

Cadet Fourth Class Harry Kim watched as his tutor smirked to the man sitting across the table from her. "I don't know. Paris, would Monday night work for me?"

"Nope," the tall blond man responded with a smirk of his own.

She turned back to Cadet Kim. "Sorry, I have plans for Monday. I have a break from classes between 1100 and 1300 on Mondays, though. If you're free, we can meet then."

"I have class between 1100 and 1200, but I'm free for lunch from 1200 to 1300," he replied.

"Great. I'll see you then," Torres replied, turning back to her PADD. Cadet Kim didn't move from his position for a moment; once he realized that she was done, he gave a shaky smile and walked away.

"That was a bit rude," Paris said in amusement as the cadet walked away.

Torres shrugged, not looking up. "We're not friends, I'm just his engineering tutor. Besides, he needs to learn to grow a bit of a thicker skin."

"Thick skin is one thing, Ktarian scales are another."

"He likes their music, maybe it'll help him fit in."

He rolled his eyes, a gesture she missed, still studying her PADD. "I should probably get going," he said finally. "I have an early flight in the morning, and you're not paying attention to me anyway."

"Sorry about that," she said, clearly not sorry at all. "And I should probably get going, too. There was a fluctuation in Hajar's impulse engines, which was somehow my fault even though I haven't been near her shuttle in months. If it's not taken care of by practice tomorrow, she'll throw another one of her temper tantrums." She rolled her eyes as she got up. "Six weeks until Rigel." It came out as more of a sigh than anything else.


	12. Chapter 12

March

Cadet B'Elanna Torres entered the lecture hall through the upstairs doorway, like always, and made her way to her customary seat, about halfway between the podium and the top of the room, against the left wall. There, she could usually sit and work on other homework without too many people taking notice.

She pulled out her PADD and brought up the list of needed repairs to the Nova Squadron shuttles. It was Tuesday, and while the small sublight-speed crafts were still flyable after the trip to Saturn a few days before, they weren't up the standards the engineering team had set. If they wanted to keep their pilots from crashing into each other the next weekend, there was still a good deal of work to be done. Although, judging from what she saw of their performance at the Academy Flight Range, there was very little chance of that happening. Even with the Rigel Cup still four weeks away, they were ready.

She sighed and massaged her temples, feeling a headache coming on. Although she didn't require as much sleep as some of her classmates and teammates, her schedule was getting to be too much even for her. The Rigel Cup was four weeks away, track was in full swing, and classes were doing their fair share in occupying her time. She was grateful that the Jameson competition was now behind her; the three-day competition of secondary school engineering ended the previous Friday morning when she gave her capstone talk of the research she had been doing in Admiral Chapman's lab. She had been nervous about judging the competition and presenting her research, but it went well overall. Despite her initial reluctance to take the assignment, she had actually had a good time.

"Bring up section seventeen in your texts," Commander Isaacs boomed from the front of the terraced lecture hall after the students had taken their seats. "We're going to be beginning our discussions on Klingon/human relations."

_Oh, Kahless_, Torres muttered to herself. Although she had known this day would be coming, she wasn't prepared for it. She continued silently checking the list of needed repairs, trying not to feel the eyes of her seventy classmates on her. She tried not to, but she found herself listening to the comparative exobiologist's words. To her dismay, he was describing the role of the Klingon female in the mating ritual, that of the aggressor and instigator, and the problems that were caused in Klingon/human relationships, especially between a Klingon female and human male, as a result.

"Due to the physical and often violent nature of Klingon sexual practices, it is often more than human males can withstand, resulting in broken bones and, on occasion, severe internal bleeding. Humans, especially human males, should consult with a physician before engaging in sexual activity with Klingons."

"Gods," Torres muttered, aware that she spoke the word aloud. She felt her face burning, and stared down at her PADD, her forehead in her hand, as if covering up the ridges made them go away. She heard some muted laughter, and tried to convince herself that it had nothing to do with her. Pretty difficult when she was the only one with any Klingon blood sitting in the room, or any other room at the Academy.

"On rare occasions, viable offspring may result from intercourse between a Klingon and a human," Isaacs continued. The muted laughter grew a bit louder; now she knew everyone was staring at her. "Cadet Torres," Isaacs boomed. Torres' head shot up, and the laughter was silenced immediately. A pin falling in that room would have startled anyone. It was as if all seventy students were holding their breaths, waiting to see what their professor would ask. "Did your parents seek medical attention in your conception?"

B'Elanna felt her face flush brighter than would have been possible in any full-blooded Klingon. "Excuse me?" she managed. Did he really just ask that?

"I asked if your parents sought medical attention to conceive, or if it was a natural conception," he repeated.

"I heard you," she snapped, more pointed than anticipated. "I just don't think that's the business of anybody here."

"Cadet," he said calmly. "This is a learning environment. We are only trying to learn about a subject of which you have intimate knowledge."

Her face flushed brighter at the word 'intimate'. "What?" she asked in disbelief. Was this really happening? It reminded her all too much of a nightmare she had had since she was in middle school.

"This is a class on interspecies relationships. Since you are the only person in this room who is here as a result of such a relationship, I was hoping you could tell the class about your experiences."

"I most certainly will not," she said brusquely, rising from her seat. "Or, how about, I'll talk about my conception after the rest of my classmates discuss their own. Does that seem appropriate?" Her classmates looked stunned at the display; not only was she talking back to a professor, but she was moving to leave class in the middle of a lecture. Not for the first time, Torres was glad that there was enough space between the rows of tables for her to move quickly to the aisle; the last thing she wanted was to be tripping over her classmates.

"Cadet Torres!" Commander Isaacs scolded. "Return to your seat at once!"

Now halfway between her seat and the back door, Torres slowly turned to face her professor. "You were right, Commander," she said angrily. "This is a learning environment, and I think I learned a great deal here today." To her credit, she made it all the way out the building without hitting or throwing anything.

---

Admiral Owen Paris was making his way across the Academy campus when a student ran by at full speed. He frowned; even if it wasn't in the middle of a class period, which is was, it wasn't appropriate for cadets to be running on campus in uniform. With a start, he recognized the offending cadet.

"Cadet Torres!" he hollered. She skidded to a stop about five meters from where he stood. She didn't look at him, but kept her eyes straight forward, her body stiffly at attention.

He walked around her so he was in her line of sight, but she wasn't really focused on anything, just giving the eyes-forward stony expression of a cadet at attention. "Where are you going?" he asked.

Her eyes finally focused on his face, as much as they could focus on anything. He saw that they were red-rimmed, her cheeks streaked with tears. He thought he remembered from his exobiology course that Klingons didn't have tear ducts; then again, humans did, so maybe that was a gene she inherited from her human side. "I don't know, sir," she finally replied, her voice dull.

"Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, her voice no more expressive.

He studied her face, but for once, it gave away nothing of what she was thinking. "Is there a reason you're not there?"

"Yes, sir."

He waited for her to explain, but she didn't offer any more information. "What happened?"

That got a reaction, but only briefly. "I'd rather not say, sir," she said after a pause.

"Cadet," he began, then changed his mind. "B'Elanna. If something happened with one of the students or professors, you should fill out a report and make sure that this is brought to the attention of the administration. I can help you, if you'd like."

He didn't know if it was his words or the simple fact that he addressed her by her first name, but her impassive at-attention expression broke away, her eyes flashing briefly. "Thanks," she managed, "but this is something I have to deal with on my own."

He studied her for a moment, frowning slightly. "At least let me get you off campus. Come to our house, stay through dinner. It'll help clear your mind."

She gave a short laugh. "Thanks for the offer, but after what just happened, I fully expect a group of security officers to come looking for me. I couldn't have you harbor a fugitive."

He frowned, trying to figure out what she could have done, then decided he didn't need to know. "You let me deal with that. Come with me."

"It's not necessary, sir," she argued.

"Don't make me make it an order," he said in a warning tone. She frowned, but then nodded her assent and followed him to the transport station.


	13. Chapter 13

March

At the Paris house, Torres again begged off, saying she wanted to be alone. She went out back to the orchard and took a seat on the hammock Tom had first strung between two apple trees years before. Admiral Paris watched with concern as she pulled out a PADD and proceeded to work as if nothing had happened.

He went to his office and immediately contacted the Smithsonian Museum of Culture in Washington, DC. "Alicia Paris, please," he said when the receptionist appeared.

"I'll transfer you. Please hold," the older woman said absently. A minute later, Owen was looking at the familiar face of his wife.

"Owen? What are you doing at home? Is there a problem?" Alicia asked immediately, her eyes wide with concern.

"I know you just got that shipment of books in, but I think you should come right away," he replied. "Something happened to B'Elanna at the Academy today. She's very upset, but doesn't want to talk about it. I brought her here, figuring some time away from campus would help, but she still isn't saying anything. You're much better with these things than I am."

"I'll be home as soon as I can," Alicia promised, knowing better than to argue with her husband once he had made up his mind. He had always been protective, and after she had spent winter break with the Paris family, he had extended that protectiveness to the young half-Klingon cadet, treating her almost like a third daughter.

After the comm link was disconnected, Alicia began packing up her things. "Gloria, I'm taking off," she told her secretary. "I'll see you tomorrow. And no taking a look at those books while I'm gone," she added lightly. Not that there was much risk of that; Gloria wasn't much of a historian.

"Okay, Alicia. I'll try to contain myself," Gloria replied with a chuckle. She knew something big must have been happening; Alicia Paris had been contacted directly by a woman who found a few boxes of books from the late twentieth century while cleaning out her mother's attic, and she had been looking forward to going through them since.

As she walked the block to the transporter station, Alicia reflected on how well working in Washington, DC had worked out. When the kids were young, she worked half-days, always in the afternoons. With the differences in time zones, by the time she had gotten the kids to work, it was time for her to beam over to the museum to begin her work. Then at five o'clock, at the end of the day, it was only two o'clock back in San Francisco, getting her home with plenty of time to spare before the school day was out. Now that the kids were out of the house, she worked a full day, leaving the house before six in the morning--which was usually about the same time Owen left for work--and was still home several hours before he arrived. Now, just past five in the afternoon in DC, she was hardly leaving early, but it was still early afternoon in San Francisco.

She walked through the threshold of the house she had first made her home more than thirty-five years before, and was greeted with the sound of silence. "Owen?" she called out.

"In my office," came the prompt reply. She walked down the short hall to the small room he made his office and found him sitting at his desk, a look of consternation on his face. She caught his eye and shrugged.

"So where is she?" she asked.

"In the orchard," he replied. "She hasn't said anything about what happened. At the Academy, she said she fully expected a group of security officers to come after her, but she didn't seem as if she had done anything violent. I think something happened in class, but she won't say what. I tried to reach Tom, but he's out on a test run for a few more hours. I left a message for him to come home as soon as he was done."

"Do you think it was something involving another student?" Alicia asked, concerned. She hoped it wasn't anything having to do with Tom, especially since Owen had already contacted him, but she doubted the cadet would have allowed Owen to talk her into leaving campus if it had anything to do with his son. Besides, after putting three kids through Starfleet training, she had heard her share of stories about the cruelty of some of the other cadets to anyone they viewed as different.

"Either another student or a professor, I'm not sure which. Whatever it was, it was enough to make her leave class early and very upset."

Alicia tightened her lips into a thin line as she considered the possibilities. She knew that B'Elanna was proud of her engineering abilities and her work; maybe someone had insulted that work? She wasn't comfortable with her hybrid status or the fact that she was the only cadet in Starfleet with Klingon heritage; perhaps a comment had been made about that? Although she could see both situations happening, she couldn't imagine either being enough to upset her as much as she obviously was. "I'll go talk to her," she said finally. "Maybe it was just something small that was exacerbated by the stress that she's been under." That didn't seem any more likely than the other situations she had imagined.

She walked out the door from the kitchen and headed toward the orchard. She loved that orchard; small as it was, it gave them enough apples for some applesauce and homemade apple pies each year. The branches were low enough and sturdy enough that she hadn't worried when the kids played in them growing up, and it never failed to become the topic of conversation when the Parises were hosting yet another dull gathering of the Starfleet elite or foreign diplomats. She found B'Elanna sitting stiffly on the hammock—well, as stiffly as sitting on a hammock would allow. "Tom went through a Robinson Caruso phase when he was twelve," Alicia said lightly as she approached. "He strung the hammock, begged to be allowed to sleep in it at night. Owen always complained about how uncomfortable it was, but every spring, he always brings it back out and puts it up again."

B'Elanna glanced up at her and didn't say anything for a moment. "It's not too bad," she finally replied. She turned back to her PADD. "You didn't have to come home early from work."

"I work on the east coast," Alicia said lightly as she gently sat next to the young cadet on the hammock, careful not to disturb it enough to send them both flying. "The work day was almost over already. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," B'Elanna replied, not looking up from her work.

Alicia sat patiently and didn't say anything. She was good at dealing with the emotions of young women; while Tom had inherited his father's façade of disinterest and calm, both Janine and Elisabeth had their mother's passionate disposition, tending to react to everything around them. She knew if she waited long enough, she would get what she had come for.

A few minutes had passed before B'Elanna sighed and sat her PADD on her lap. She rubbed her eyes warily. "Today we discussed Klingon/human relationships in Interspecies Protocol," she said, her voice tight.

"Ah," Alicia said, her tone understanding. Owen had taken the course as a first classman, the year that he had started dating Alicia. She remembered lounging on the bed in her apartment at Berkley when he could come over, both of them working on homework and laughing together about some of their assignments or passages from required reading. The ones for Interspecies Protocol were always good for their entertainment value then, but now that she looked back on it from a more mature point of view, she could see how upsetting they could be when read by someone belonging to one of the species described, especially for someone as private as B'Elanna Torres.

Torres sighed again, this time in frustration. "I overreacted. I always overreact about these things. My mother used to say I'm too sensitive, that I shouldn't pay attention to what other people say."

Alicia, a tactile person by nature, smoothed back the younger woman's hair and rubbed her shoulder, much as she would have done for her own daughters. "Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me what happened?"

B'Elanna squeezed her eyes closed, either to block the flow of tears or whatever memories were coming. "Commander Isaacs started talking about Klingon mating practices. He was describing the roles that Klingon men and women take, with the woman as the instigator and the aggressor, and I could just _feel_ everyone looking at me. Then he started to talk about the cultural differences between Klingons and humans in regards to courtship and mating rituals in relationships involving Klingon men and human women, and then Klingon women and human men. And then he went on to describe the physical difficulties with such matings, especially involving Klingon women, due to 'highly aggressive and violent behavior', and the fact that human bodies aren't built for that, and the broken bones and internal bleeding that could result."

Alicia winced. "That must have been very hard for you to sit through, considering your parents—"

"Oh, that wasn't the worst of it," B'Elanna interrupted. "As if it weren't bad enough to have to sit there and try not to think about my parents' sex life and try to convince myself that my classmates weren't at that moment thinking about my parents' sex life," she paused, "or my own. But then," she stood abruptly, nearly sending the older woman to the ground in the process, and began to pace. "But then he has the _audacity_ to ask about my conception, to ask if my parents sought any medical attention or if it was natural! As if that's his business or the business of anybody else in that room! I told him that, and he replied that, because it's a class on interspecies relationships and reproduction, I owe my classmates that much. I said I would answer any questions he may have about my conception when the rest of my classmates told about their own. And then I left."

"I don't think you overreacted at all," Alicia said, trying to sound soothing even as she felt herself get angry on behalf of the cadet. "Commander Isaacs had no right to single you out on the basis of your genealogy, and certainly had no right to be asking such personal questions. No cadet, regardless of lineage, should be expected to answer those questions, and if Starfleet Academy disagrees, I know Owen would have a few choice words to say to them."

Torres shook her head emphatically. "All of that is true, but I still overreacted. I could have refused to say anything about my parents without losing my temper or walking out of class. People are always going to be asking me that same type of question, and I can't get violent every time it comes up. I need to find a better way of dealing with things, or there isn't going to be a posting in Starfleet that'll take me."

Alicia wished there was something she could say to make the younger woman feel better, but she knew her words would all fall flat. Instead, she gave a tight smile and reassuring squeeze of the shoulder, told B'Elanna that she would let her get back to her work, and headed back to the kitchen, where Owen was standing at the window, having watched but not heard the encounter.

"It was Interspecies Protocol," Alicia said to his unasked question. She repeated what Torres had told her, trying not to leave any details out. As she spoke, she felt herself get angry at what had happened, and could tell that Owen felt the same way.

"I'm going to have a talk to the department head tomorrow," Owen promised. "The professors need to be more respectful of their students, and there is no reason for those questions to be asked." He glanced out the large window toward the orchard. "I guess there's really not anything else that can be said right now."

Alicia agreed, and gave her husband a quick kiss before he turned and headed back for his office. She remained in the kitchen, surveying her surroundings as she debated whether to cook or replicate dinner that night. Deciding that it had been too long since she had a reason to cook, she picked up her PADD of recipes and began thumbing through to find something that looked good. She was just settling on a menu when she heard the familiar sound of the front door opening. "Hello?" Tom called from the threshold.

She stepped out of the kitchen at the same time Owen emerged from his office. He gave her a guilty look, which she returned; both had forgotten that he had left a message for Tom to come home as soon as he could. It seemed appropriate at the time, since it was his friend who was upset, but now that they knew what she was upset about, it no longer seemed like a good idea. Neither parent was completely sure what was going on between the ensign and cadet, but they were both fairly certain that it was more than the friendship they claimed.

"What's going on?" Tom asked, concerned. "I got a message that I should come here as soon as I could, so what's the emergency?"

"I think it's under control now," Owen said after a pause.

"_What's_ under control now?" Tom asked, beginning to get frustrated.

Owen paused again, trying to figure out what to say to avoid hurting his son's feelings. "B'Elanna was upset enough that she left class early, but we've talked to her and gotten to the bottom of it, so there's nothing to worry about."

"She's gotten upset before, but never enough to walk out of class," Tom remarked with a frown, "which means that this _is_ something to worry about. Where is she? I'll go talk to her."

"That's not necessary, Tom," Alicia said in a soothing voice. "Everything is taken care of."

Tom's eyes darted from one parent to the other. "You keep saying that, but haven't said why she's so upset or why you don't want me to talk to her. You don't think _I_ had anything to do with this, do you?"

"No, of course not," Alicia replied quickly. "I just don't think she'd want to talk to you right now."

"That's ridiculous," Tom replied indignantly. "She always vents to me about the things that piss her off. Where is she?"

"Out in the orchard," Owen finally answered. "But if she doesn't want to talk to you, don't press the issue," he said firmly. Tom didn't reply as he exited the house from the kitchen.

Alicia watched with concern from the kitchen window as Tom approached the hammock. She couldn't hear what was being said, but she tried to guess by the body language. B'Elanna looked up in surprise when he approached, then stiffened. Tom appeared unaffected, not seeming to react to her actions. They appeared to just be talking for awhile, B'Elanna still sitting on the hammock, Tom still leaning against the tree. Alicia couldn't be sure, but she figured Tom was asking what happened, and B'Elanna wasn't sharing.

That went on for what could have been five minutes or thirty, and then B'Elanna started to get upset. She sat straighter in the hammock, then stood. Both Tom and B'Elanna adopted defensive positions, and while no sounds made their way into the house, it was obvious that they were shouting at each other. Alicia found herself worried that they would come to blows; she knew Tom wouldn't strike the small woman, but he would defend himself if B'Elanna began to fight. Despite the fact that Tom was several centimeters taller and quite a few kilos heavier than the cadet, her Klingon strength meant that she could probably do some serious damage if she wanted.

Alicia wasn't sure how long they stood there yelling at each other, although it seemed to last for hours. She didn't know what Tom said, but could tell from B'Elanna's reaction that it hadn't gone over well. Her entire body stiffened and she raised her arm to strike, but Tom, demonstrating the quick reflexes that came from years of piloting, grabbed both of her arms and held them tight. She struggled against his grasp, but he didn't let go; instead, he pulled her closer to him, and then wrapped his arms around her slight frame. She tried to fight back but gave in after a moment, her back heaving as she sobbed against his chest.

"They really care about each other, don't they?" Owen asked from behind his wife, both looking out the window at the pair.

"Yeah," Alicia replied softly. "But I think it'll take them awhile to realize it."


	14. Chapter 14

March

"I just don't know what to do with you!" Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres winced at the words spoken by her advisor and Nova Squadron supervisor, Admiral Alexander Chapman. She had never seen him angry before, and wished she didn't have to witness it now. It was Thursday during the lunch hour. Admiral Chapman had been at Jupiter Station for the past week, and had missed Torres walking out of her Interspecies Protocol class on Tuesday. He, of course, heard about the incident, and when she woke up on Thursday morning, she found a message from the admiral ordering her to report to his office at 1200 waiting on her console.

"This is inexcusable," he continued. "I took you on as a member of my lab and the Nova Squadron engineering team. Everything you do if a reflection of me and that team. I left here last week thinking that everything was under control, that my lab was running smoothly and my student engineers were so busy preparing for Rigel that nothing was going to happen, and then I find out that the student I have chosen to mentor not only spoke back to a superior officer in front of seventy other cadets, but also walked out of class early, despite being ordered to return to her seat! Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"No, sir," Torres managed.

"That's right!" Chapman continued as if he hadn't heard her. "There is nothing that can explain your behavior. I should throw you out of my lab and remove you from the team."

"Sir-" Torres began, but the look on the admiral's face silenced her.

"When is your disciplinary hearing?" he asked.

"Tomorrow morning, sir," she replied.

"And this isn't your first time in front of that board."

"No, sir."

He sighed and ran his fingers through his still-thick silver hair. "I'm not going to remove you from the lab or the team—yet. I'm going to wait and see what the board recommends. If they remove you from the Academy or order you off of Nova Squadron, both of which are within their rights in this case, well, that makes my decision easy. If not, I'll let you stay, at least through this weekend. If you can manage to keep your temper in check through the trip to the flight range, I'll consider keeping you on and letting you go to Rigel. You should consider yourself on probation with me until further notice."

"Yes, sir."

"As for this minute, I believe your class is scheduled to begin in ten minutes. You will go to class, and you will sit politely and pay attention to everything Commander Isaacs has to say. If he has any questions, you will answer them—no exceptions," he warned when she opened her mouth to protest. "You will not talk back to Commander Isaacs or any of your other professors, you will not speak unless you are asked a question, you will stay in class until you are dismissed by your professor. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now see to it. You're dismissed, Cadet."

She turned on her heel and left the office, her face burning in humiliation. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to her the way Admiral Chapman just did, and she found it was no more pleasant now than it was then. She quickly made her way toward class. Entering the auditorium through the same door she always did, at the top of the stairs, she noticed the conversations grow quieter when she walked in and felt her face flush again at the realization that they had been talking about her.

She was about to make her way to her usual seat when she made eye contact with Cadet Wesley Crusher. He silently pulled out the chair next to him, against the wall in the back row, and gestured with his head for her to sit there. She sat stiffly in the seat and pulled out her PADD as if hoping that ignoring her classmates would make them go away.

"Are they still looking at me?" she asked quietly a minute later.

"A few, yeah," Crusher admitted. "I'm surprised you came back."

"I'm under orders from Chapman. He pretty much told me it's this or I'm off the squad."

"Ouch."

"Yeah," she replied. "As far as he's concerned, I'm under probation until the day I retire from Starfleet." She sighed deeply. "Kahless, this is humiliating."

"Nobody's laughing at you," he said. "In fact, pretty much everyone admires you for what you did."

"For losing my temper and leaving class?" she asked in disbelief.

"For standing up against something that's wrong. Nobody here thinks that it was appropriate for Isaacs to be asking what he did."

"I just hope the disciplinary board agrees."

"Everyone here signed a petition to the board," he informed her. "Saying that you shouldn't be punished for what happened. By this time tomorrow, as far as the Academy is concerned, it will be as if it never happened."

The class stood as one as Commander Isaacs entered the auditorium. "I hope you're right," Torres muttered as they took their seats. Either way, it was going to be a long twenty-four hours.

---

"We have taken the time to review the evidence in this case, including the testimony of Admiral Owen Paris and the statement signed by the seventy-four cadets who witnessed the event in question. It is the opinion of this disciplinary board that the actions of Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres were not inappropriate, and as such, no punishment will be given. In addition, a formal investigation will be conducted to look into the actions and statements of Commander Andrew Isaacs," Admiral Aret, an ancient appearing Vulcan, declared in a tone no more revealing than if he had been reading the weather report. "However, in light of Cadet Torres' lengthy record of appearing before this board, we are making a note of this event in her Starfleet Academy record along with the recommendation that she better controls her temper in the future." For the first time, the Admiral glanced down at the half-Klingon cadet. "Cadet, while this is not an order, it has been suggested that you seek assistance in gaining this sort of control. For example, there are several Vulcan techniques that could teach you to control your more basic emotional responses."

Torres flushed slightly at the idea of adopting the stern Vulcan exterior that had so baffled her. "I'll keep that in mind, sir."

Aret nodded once. "This meeting of the disciplinary board is dismissed."

B'Elanna felt a wave of relief wash over her as she turned to leave. She caught the eye of Admiral Chapman, who had been sitting in the back, near the door. He didn't look any more pleased than he had the day before, but he nodded once in acknowledgement. She walked over to him. "You're free to go to the Academy Flight Range this weekend," he said as she approached. "However, as I told you yesterday, I will be watching your actions closely before deciding if you're to go to the Rigel Cup. You have a little more than three weeks to show me that you can be trusted."

Even worse than his yelling the day before was the quiet way he had let her know that she had let him down. "Yes, sir," she replied. He nodded as a dismissal, and she exited the room and headed for her Warp Mechanics course.


	15. Chapter 15

April

"Torres!" Cadet First Class Jackson yelled across the crowded room, filled with the engineers of ten flight teams waiting, some more patiently than others. Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres snapped her head in his direction. "Sito blew an EPS conduit during prelims!" he continued. "Get down there and fix it!"

"Aye!" Torres called out in reply, already heading toward the door. The team was at the Rigel Cup, and there were less than four hours before the Nova Squadron from Starfleet Academy Earth would be competing in the finals. It had been hard, but she had been the perfect model cadet for the last three weeks, hoping to earn Chapman's trust back and keep her place on the engineering team. She didn't know if he had noticed, but he had given her the okay to go, and she wanted very much not to let him down that week.

She entered the hangar and headed over to the sublight craft in question to find a very anxious blond Bajoran cadet in her dark green flight suit sitting in the cockpit. "Thank the prophets!" she exclaimed when she saw Torres enter. "I don't know what I did, I didn't notice anything off during prelims, but when I came in here to do my routine check, I found a blown conduit. I'm really sorry I didn't catch it earlier."

"It's okay, these things can be sneaky sometimes," Torres replied absently as she opened the access panel and flipped open her tricorder.

"Are you going to be able to fix it in time?" Sito asked, no less anxious. "I _knew_ I should have come in last night to check everything out."

"It'll take me about fifteen minutes," Torres replied, already pulling out the tools she would need. Her words didn't seem to have any calming effect on the older cadet, who had begun checking every system she could think to check. "Have you started on your Officership report yet?" Torres asked, hoping to distract the pilot.

"No, I've been too nervous about the competition to even _think_ about my homework," Sito replied.

"Well, I keep getting stuck on mine. I was wondering if you could look over it with me tomorrow when we're on our way back."

"Yeah," Sito replied, smiling slightly. "I'd be glad to help however I can."

"I'd appreciate it," Torres replied, flipping open her tricorder again. "I think I got it. Let me run a quick diagnostic, and then I'll get out of your hair." She moved about a meter to the engineering console and started the diagnostic. A few minutes later, the computer beeped to announce that it was done.

"Everything looks good here," Torres replied, scrolling through the report. "That shouldn't give you any problems at all. Is there anything else you want me to check while I'm here?"

Sito glanced at her own monitor and shook her head slowly. "No, everything else looks good." She gave Torres a shaky smile. "Thanks for taking care of this so quickly. I don't know how you're so calm, I feel like such a nervous wreck."

"Sito, you have to be the first person to ever call me 'calm'," Torres replied with a smile. "You're going to be fine. You guys know this routine well enough to do it in your sleep."

"Thanks," Sito repeated. She paused slightly. "I don't know if I've ever said this, but I really appreciate how much time and effort you put into keeping these shuttles running. It means a lot to know that you care so much about this team. I just wish there were something I could do in return."

Torres smiled back as she packed up her tools. "Trust me, you helping me with my Officership report will be return enough." She straightened and headed out of the shuttle. She paused at the open door. "Right now, my mother would say '_Qapla'!_', but I think the more appropriate human phrase would be 'break a leg'."

"I never understood what that has to do with good luck," Sito admitted with a slight smile.

"Neither do I," Torres replied as she ducked out of the craft. She ran into Cadet First Class Nicholas Locarno, heading into the shuttle bay as she was heading out.

"Sito's craft okay?" he asked, concerned.

"Everything's fine," Torres replied. "It was just a blown conduit, took me less than twenty minutes to take care of. Is there anything else you want me to take a look at while I'm here?"

He shook his head. "We've all run our checks, and everything came back clean, but thanks."

"Even Hajar?"

He smiled. "Even Hajar," he assured her, remembering the year before when she discovered a problem with her plasma injectors less than half an hour before finals. It hadn't ended up being a problem, but it had shaken everyone up quite a bit.

"Well, if I don't see you again before finals, good luck out there."

"Thanks, Torres. And good luck in here. It does make us feel better, knowing we have the best engineering team out there watching our back for us."

---

"I actually feel more nervous now than I did as they were flying," Jacks confided softly to Torres as they waited patiently for the awards ceremony to begin.

"Don't worry, you're not going to be the first chief engineer in twelve years to lose the Rigel Cup engineering competition," she assured him, but she felt a little nervous herself. The year before, she didn't quite know what was going on; now she knew what was at stake. Part of her hoped to never be the chief engineer, just because she wasn't sure how she could handle the pressure.

"You did good today," Jacks continued. "You were able to calm Sito down, which is no easy feat."

"That's the second time today somebody has called me a calming influence. I must be losing my touch," Torres replied with a sardonic grin.

"You're not as scary as you'd like people to believe," Jacks informed her. "For the last few weeks, you've been positively docile."

"It's amazing what almost getting kicked out of school does to your attitude," Torres replied dryly.

"Nah, I don't think it was that. I think Paris has had a calming influence on you." She glared harshly at him and opened her mouth to protest, but the awards ceremony had begun.

---

B'Elanna Torres leaned against the bar as she surveyed her surroundings, taking in the hundred-plus college students, most rivals who had put aside their arguments to all celebrate the end of another grueling flight season. She smiled slightly as she remembered how overwhelmed she had felt the year before and how the countless drinks Siobhan Patel had thrust into her hands had done little to change that. "Hey, Torres, you want to dance?" She jumped at the deep voice and spun to find herself staring at the chest of her chief engineer. Her gaze went up to see Cadet Jackson grinning down at her.

"I don't dance, Jacks." The dark-skinned first classman's grin widened at the words as he idly played with the now-empty glass he was holding.

"C'mon. One dance won't kill you. We're celebrating, remember? First Nova Squadron victory in over a decade, twelfth engineering team victory in a row? Does any of this ring a bell?" Jacks teased.

"I can celebrate without dancing."

He snorted. "I know, I ran into you and Siobhan last year. Of course, in the state you were in, you probably don't remember."

She rolled her eyes at the older engineer. "I'm not a good dancer," she finally admitted

"It's okay, I'm great. You just need to follow my lead." He deposited the glass on the bar and grabbed her hand, all but dragging her to the dance floor, still protesting. "Here, put your hand here," he said, placing her left hand on his shoulder as he took her right hand and placed his right hand above her hip.

"I actually wanted to talk something over with you," Jacks said after a moment.

"Sure," Torres replied, still getting the hang of what she was doing.

"Chapman and I were talking about who should take over as chief next year."

She looked up at him and rolled her eyes. "I know, I'll be answering to Houk next year. You don't need to try to break it to me gently."

"Actually, we were thinking Houk would make a good deputy chief."

She frowned. "Houk's going to be the only first classman next year, since Xi and Grousman decided they're not returning."

"I know," he said with a grin. "But you've been on the squad almost as long as Houk, and you're a better engineer."

As quick as it was, it took her brain a few seconds to process his words. "Me? You think I should be chief next year? Chapman doesn't even trust me anymore, and for good reason. I yell at people. I break bones. I lose my temper. I'm not chief material."

"I think Chapman trusts you more than you realize, and we both think you can do this. Since Ferreras, Kelley, and I are graduating, and Xi and Grousman aren't coming back, half of the engineering team is going to be new. It's going to take a great engineer and a great motivator to keep the Nova Squadron Earth record alive, and there is no greater motivator than a brilliant engineer with a half-Klingon temper."

She glared at him, but it wasn't her best effort. "You've got to be out of your mind," she stated bluntly.

He chuckled. "Maybe. But I still think you should do this. Talk it over with Paris, he'll agree."

"Paris has nothing to do with this," she said pointedly.

"That's not a very nice thing to say about your boyfriend."

Her glare grew stronger. "Let's get one thing straight, Jacks. Not that it's any of your business, but Paris is _not_ my boyfriend."

"Maybe you should change your mind. He's obviously interested."

"Okay, this dance is over," Torres said, releasing his hand. She backed away from him and glared again before stalking off.


	16. Chapter 16

May

"Hey." Cadet B'Elanna Torres nearly jumped in surprise at the voice.

"Locarno. What do you need?"

Cadet Nick Locarno gave her a cocky grin before he handed her a PADD. "We've been running simulations on our routine for graduation, and the shuttles have seemed a little shaky in the sims. I think these changes would help before we do anything in real life, and I was hoping you could take a look at it before I turned it into Jacks. I was wondering if you wanted to discuss this over dinner."

She grimaced slightly. "Sorry, not tonight. It's Monday, I have a standing engagement."

"Tom Paris?"

"Tom Paris," she confirmed with a slight smile. "But how about this? I'll take a look at this tonight, and we can talk about it over dinner tomorrow." She thumbed through the information on the PADD quickly and frowned. "Where's the data from the simulations? It'll really help figure out what needs to be fixed."

"Oh, I didn't even think about that," Locarno admitted. "Well, can you just take a look at what I have and help me clean it up before I give it to Jacks? I never know exactly what to put, and I feel like an idiot in front of you smart engineering types."

She smiled thinly at his not-so-subtle compliment. "Sure, it's not a problem. So are you guys adding something to your routine that you didn't do at Rigel?"

He grinned. "Well, with how excited everyone on campus has been about our victory, I figured they deserved a really good show for graduation. But we've been keeping up with our routine just in case this doesn't work out."

"Well, I look forward to seeing it. Are we going to the flight range this weekend to practice?"

"Depends on if you guys can get these repairs done," he replied with a grin.

"Depends on if _you_ guys can take care of the shakiness in the simulations," she retorted. She held up the PADD. "I'll get to this tonight, I promise. In the meantime, though, it's time for me to get to dinner. See you tomorrow?"

"You can count on it," he replied, flashing another one of his wide grins, which dropped quickly as he watched her walk out of the hangar. That had not gone as smoothly as planned.

---

"Do you _always_ have a PADD with you?" Ensign Tom Paris asked, aware of how annoyed he was sounding and not really caring. It had been a long day, starting way too early in the morning and marked by far too many failed runs as they tried to bring the new warp system on line. He was starting to believe that Class 2 shuttlecrafts really couldn't go any faster than warp four, no matter what the designers did.

Cadet B'Elanna Torres briefly fixed him with a steely gaze before her eyes fell on the PADD. "A week before finals and two weeks before Nova Squadron performs at graduation? Do you have to ask? Besides, it's not as if you're being such a stellar conversationalist tonight."

"Maybe I would be, if you had put some effort into it," he retorted. That wasn't fair, and he knew it. She had tried to engage him in conversation for probably the first half hour of their dinner, far longer than she usually did.

She glanced up at him again, briefly. "You don't want to start a fight with me, Paris. Not tonight, not when I have reports to write and finals to prepare for. And on top of that, Locarno gives me a list of modifications he wants me to look over before he submits it to Jacks. If you want to sit there and pout, that's your business, but don't expect me to play along." She frowned as she studied the list from Locarno more closely. "Now, that doesn't make any sense…" she murmured, her voice trailing off.

"What doesn't?" Paris asked, no less irritated but genuinely interested.

"These modifications he wants made. There's no reason for most of them, not with the routine they have planned. Here, take a look and let me know what you think." She handed over the PADD, which he reluctantly took.

"Shield polarity, coolant interlocks, plasma injectors," he muttered, reading from the list. He frowned deeply and glanced across the table at his dinner companion. "I do a lot of maneuvers, and there's only one I can think of that calls for these kinds of changes," he said, concerned.

Torres nodded. "I know. Are you sure there's no other explanation?"

Paris shook his head. "No. In fact, these changes to the coolant interlocks would decrease performance in most maneuvers. They're planning a Kolvoord Starburst, I'd be willing to bet my comic book collection on it."

She sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. What should I do?"

"You've got to tell someone, right away," he said insistently. "Jacks, Chapman, the superintendent of the Academy, anybody. If they try this, they could all be killed."

"There's got to be another explanation," Torres responded, taking back the PADD and studying it carefully. "Locarno's ambitious, but he's not stupid, and I can't imagine the others going for this, especially Albert. He's a good pilot, but he doesn't have this kind of confidence."

"You've got to do something," Paris insisted. "If they're preparing to do a Kolvoord, this is serious."

"I'm going to talk to Siobhan," Torres responded after a pause. "Maybe we're overlooking something simple."

"I think you should take it to Jacks, but if you think Siobhan could shed some light on the situation, by all means, show her. Just do it soon. Hopefully this whole thing will just blow over before anybody does anything stupid."

---

Cadet Nicholas Locarno watched the pair sharing a pizza on the other side of the Union dining facility, a deep frown on his face. At first, nothing appeared out of the ordinary; Paris seemed to be grouchy about something, and after trying unsuccessfully to cheer him up, Torres appeared to give up and pulled out the PADD he had given her in the hangar.

And that's when things went horribly, horribly wrong. It didn't take her long to realize something was wrong about the modifications he had suggested, and she was quick to point it out to the officer sitting across the table, who was just as quick on the uptake. He realized with a feeling of dread that he had underestimated the half-Klingon engineer.

"Hey, I thought you were going to be discussing the modifications with Torres tonight?" Cadet Jean Hajar remarked, taking the empty seat across from him without asking.

"I was going to," he said, nodding at the table across the room. "I forgot she has dinner with Paris every Monday night."

Hajar's dark eyes followed Locarno's line of sight to the ensign and cadet and frowned. They appeared to be in an animated discussion about something, frequently gesturing toward a PADD Torres was waving around. "Is that the maintenance report you gave her?" Hajar asked, her voice low.

"Yeah," he replied gloomily. "And it took her about thirty seconds to realize that we're plotting something, so she showed Paris. He saw it just as quickly. I bet they're trying to figure out who to report me to first. Best case scenario, the Starburst is scrapped. Worst, I don't get to graduate for even thinking about it."

"They're not going to keep you from graduating, you're the first Nova Squadron leader to win us the cup in over a decade. And besides, they don't have any proof that you're planning anything."

"Except a maintenance report with my name on it and the records of ten hours in the simulators," he replied with a sigh.

"Simulator records can be lost," Hajar said, her eyes brightening as a plan began to form. "And maintenance reports can be forged. I should know, I've post-dated enough of them over the last two years. All you need to do is turn in a copy of that report to Captain Rawlings, say you never saw it before and have no idea how your name got on it, and very innocently suggest that maybe someone is trying to set you up for something you didn't do. I'll take care of the simulators."

A slow smiled began to form on Locarno's face as he considered her plan. "Somebody's going to have to take the fall for this," he remarked.

"And who do you think they're going to believe?" Hajar asked, her own grin forming as she slowly glanced across the room. "The best squad leader the Academy has seen in a decade, or a half-Klingon engineer who is always getting in trouble? This is going to be so easy, you're hardly going to have to think about it."


	17. Chapter 17

May

Ensign Siobhan Patel yawned as she tucked a lock of wavy dark hair behind her ear. _It's getting too long_, she thought to herself. _Time to either get it cut or start putting it up again_.

She laughed slightly at the realization that she had been thinking about her hair in the middle of an experiment; it was a sure sign that she was tired. Her hair, and in fact any aspect of her physical appearance, was usually far from becoming a conscious thought. Not that her appearance reflected this lack of attention—she was always well-groomed, her tiny former-gymnast frame hidden under a clean uniform, her thick collar-length hair always somewhat controlled—but when she was on-duty, and most of the time when she was off, her mind was on either the _Enterprise's_ impressive engines or one of her experiments.

Lt. Rachel Yaugh caught the yawn and chuckled. "I know beta shift is boring, Patel, but I didn't think my company was _that_ terrible."

"Sorry, Lieutenant," Patel replied with a slight smile. "I just didn't get much sleep last night—last day—whatever you call it when you're off from beta shift."

"Yeah, I've heard stories about you and a certain medical assistant," Yaugh said with a teasing voice. "Any truth to that?"

"Depends on what you've heard," Patel replied in a carefully measured voice. Although she didn't hide her personal life, she didn't like to advertise it, either.

"I heard that it's turning into quite the serious relationship," Yaugh replied.

Now it was Siobhan's turn to chuckle. "Well, I hate to disappoint, Yaugh, but 'serious' isn't in my vocabulary when it comes to men. I think of Michael as more of a… distraction."

"Ah," Yaugh replied, in a tone that clearly said she didn't understand but wasn't going to press it.

*Incoming message for Ensign Siobhan Patel from Starfleet Academy, marked urgent and personal,* the computer announced over their workstation.

Both Yaugh and Patel looked surprised at the interruption and glanced at each other. "You should probably take that," Yaugh said. "Use La Forge's office, he won't mind."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Patel replied as she locked her workstation and headed for the Chief's office. Although the first-year ensign still had friends at the Academy, she couldn't imagine who would be urgently trying to reach her right before midnight.

She accepted the message in Lt. Commander La Forge's office, and the worried face of Cadet B'Elanna Torres instantly filled the screen. "Torres?" Patel asked, concerned. "What's up? The computer marked this as urgent and personal."

"Yeah, I needed to get a hold of you right away," Torres replied, her words coming quickly. That wasn't too unusual; the half-Klingon was always a bit excitable. "I wasn't sure if you'd be on duty, or even awake, but I had to ask you something."

"And this couldn't wait another two weeks, when I'm actually going to be on Earth?" Patel asked, trying to keep her voice light. "You did know that Captain Picard is giving the graduation address, right?"

"Yeah, I remember," Torres replied, impatiently. "But it's going to be far too late by then. I need you to look over a maintenance report and let me know what you think."

"Okay, sure," Patel replied. The former chief engineer of Nova Squadron had seen more than her fair share of maintenance reports from that group, one more wouldn't hurt anything. "Just send it to this workstation and I'll take a look at it. I'm off duty soon, and as soon as I wrap my current experiment, I'll be heading to my quarters. I'll study it then."

"Okay, but this needs to be done quickly and quietly. I don't need a lengthy analysis on the report, just your first impressions. And please, don't spread this around."

"Torres, you have me worried. What's going on?"

"Just look at the report," Torres snapped. "And get back to me as soon as you can, don't worry about waking me up."

"Okay, okay. Calm down. I'll get back to you in a few hours," Patel snapped back.

Torres' face softened slightly. "Thanks, Siobhan. I owe you one."

"You owe me plenty, B'Elanna. And I intend on collecting someday, so watch out. Patel out."

---

Captain Jean-Luc Picard took a sip of tea as he eased into his chair in his quarters, one last systems report the only thing standing between him and the chance to relax before doing it all again the next day.

He was about to begin reading when the chirp of his console caught his attention. Frowning, he checked the chronometer; 2345 hours, far too late for a social call. With a heavy sigh, he turned his monitor toward him and pressed the accept button.

"Admiral Brand," he said, slightly surprised at the sight of the Superintendent of Starfleet Academy on his screen at such a late hour. "Isn't it a bit late to be asking for my revisions for the commencement speech?"

"Sorry about the hour, Captain," the Admiral replied, her voice clearly not sorry. "But this doesn't have to do with your speech. I just received a rather disturbing report concerning the Nova Squadron team. I know you are familiar with one of the cadets on the Squad, Cadet Wesley Crusher, and I thought you would want to be involved."

"Yes, Admiral, certainly," Picard replied. "What kind of report?"

She frowned, her lips pressed tightly together. "Unfortunately, I don't have many of the details yet, but it appears that one of the student engineers, a Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres, was attempting to frame the Nova Squadron pilots for preparing to perform the Kolvoord Starburst maneuver. Cadet First Class Nicholas Locarno, the squadron leader, found a PADD with a forged maintenance report on it. According to this maintenance report, Cadet Locarno wanted modifications made to the crafts to make them better suited for the maneuver. Cadet Locarno brought this to the attention of Captain Rawlings, the Nova Squadron commanding officer, as soon as he found it, and she brought it straight to me. These are very serious allegations, Captain, and I intend on investigating them fully."

"I see," Picard replied, leaning back in his chair. "And what would you like from me?"

"I know you aren't scheduled to arrive for another ten days, but I was hoping you could speed that up. We would like your help with this investigation, if possible."

Picard frowned. "You said so yourself, Admiral; I'm familiar with one of the students in question. Do you think it's wise for me to be involved?"

"I have always admired your judgment, Jean-Luc," Admiral Brand replied. "And I trust you to be impartial. Is it possible for you to hasten your arrival?"

"That shouldn't be a problem, Admiral," he replied with a frown. "We can be there in three days. I'm afraid I still don't understand why you need my assistance, however. This seems to be a fairly straightforward case."

"If there's one thing I've learned from this job, Captain, it's that when cadets are concerned, things are rarely as straightforward as they appear at first glance."


	18. Chapter 18

May

Torres was still waiting for a reply from Siobhan when the door announcer chimed. "How many times to do I have to tell you, Torres? No visitors after 2200," her roommate grumbled from the other side of the room.

"I didn't invite anyone," Torres snapped back. She didn't get along very well with her roommate on a good day, and on a day like this one, there was no use trying. She got up and opened the door, and then blinked in surprise.

"Cadet Torres?" one of the two security officers asked from the corridor.

"Yes, sir," she replied.

"Come with us, Cadet," he said. His hand briefly headed toward his phaser, and B'Elanna knew better than to argue. She silently exited the room, and the two officers fell in, one on each side of her. She didn't know what was going on, but knew it wasn't good.

She didn't know how long she had been in the holding cell when the tired-looking lieutenant commander in a red uniform appeared, but she knew it was long enough to make the brig guard glad that there was a force field between them. When the officer walked in, he nodded once at the guard, who drew his phaser before lowering the force field. Torres would have been insulted if she hadn't known it was standard protocol. "Come with me, Cadet," the recent arrival ordered, his voice sounding as tired as he looked. He didn't give her a chance to reply as he headed for the exit from the brig. Still not knowing what was going on, she eagerly followed.

They stopped in what appeared to be an interrogation room. The commander again nodded to the security guard, who remained outside as the doors slid closed. "Cadet Torres?" the man asked.

"Yes, sir. Sir, what's going on?"

He frowned deeply. "You mean nobody told you?"

"No, sir. I was sitting in my room, studying and waiting for a message, when two security officers came and told me come with them. They brought me here and you're the first other person I've seen."

"I see," he replied. "I'm Lt. Commander Billiard, I've been assigned as your primary council."

"Primary council for what?" she asked, frustrated. "I haven't done anything wrong!"

"According to my report, you forged documents implicating Cadet Locarno in attempting to perform the Kolvoord Starburst maneuver."

"_What?_" she exclaimed. "No! Cadet Locarno gave me a maintenance request to look over before he turned it into Cadet Jackson. I noticed right away what he was going to. I _didn't write it_."

As she finished her emphatic declaration, the door slid open again to reveal a young lieutenant and a familiar ensign. "Ah, good," Commander Billiard said when he saw who it was. "Cadet, this is Lt. Sam Davidson, my co-council, and Ensign Winat Gial. Ensign Winat is a first year law student, he'll be observing this case."

"We know each other, actually," Winat informed the commander. He turned to Torres and smiled weakly. "Good to see you again, Torres. Sorry I missed seeing you at Paris' birthday party, but I had an exam the next day."

"It's okay, we hardly noticed you weren't there," she replied, collapsing into the chair.

"Sir, is this a problem?" Winat asked Commander Billiard.

He shook his head. "You're just an observer. It doesn't matter who or what you know." He turned back to Torres. "Our first order of business is getting you out of here. I'm warning you, that's not going to be easy. I've heard rumors of suspension until this is taken care of."

"But I didn't do anything!" Torres exclaimed again, jumping out of her seat. "Why would he do this to me?"

"Maybe you should start at the beginning," Billiard replied. "Tell us everything that happened, from the first time you saw this maintenance request until I got you out of the holding cell. Don't leave anything out."

---

Admiral Owen Paris nodded once at the security ensign posted outside the dorm room before he entered the room. It was a single room, with no personal touches and no sign of life, with the exception of a cadet pacing furiously from one side to the other.

"Admiral!" Cadet B'Elanna Torres exclaimed when she noticed another presence in the small room.

"At ease, Cadet. Have a seat." She awkwardly sat on the bed, and he took a seat at the desk, the only chair in the room. "Before you say anything, I have to ask. Did you do it?"

She looked hurt that he would even consider such a possibility. "No, sir," she replied gloomily.

He nodded. He didn't expect any of what he had heard to be true. "Then tell me what happened," he said gently.

She repeated the story for what seemed like the hundredth time, beginning with her conversation with Locarno and ending with Commander Billiard getting her released from the holding cell and moved to the single dorm room at 0600, two hours before her first class. "They let me go to my classes today, but with a security escort to make sure I only go to class and back here. I'm not allowed to do anything or even talk to anyone, and they're still talking suspension until this is taken care of."

"Suspension?" he repeated. "Don't worry about that, I'll take care of it. Is there anything you need?"

She shook her head. "Nothing they'll let me have. This whole thing just got out of hand so quickly! I should have turned in that maintenance report right away like Tom said." She laughed bitterly. "But I didn't, because I didn't want to get anyone in trouble without being sure of what I was looking at."

"Do you know why Locarno would claim that you forged that request?"

She shook her head miserably. "I've been trying to figure that out. We were going to meet the next day to discuss the request and any changes that I would suggest. By the time he reported it, he wouldn't have even known that I had looked at it. He must have been planning this all along, but I don't know why. We weren't friends, but we got along. I could understand it if it were Hajar, but Locarno doesn't make any sense."

He frowned. He didn't know what else to say, so he stood and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. Being comforting and saying the right things didn't exactly come easily to him. "We'll get behind this, don't worry. You're going to finish all of your classes on time this semester, and you'll be right back here in the fall. I promise."

She laughed bitterly as she got up and started pacing again. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Admiral."

---

"The decision has already been made, Admiral. Cadet Torres is going to be suspended until the completion of the investigation," Admiral Brand explained calmly to Admiral Paris.

He frowned deeply from his seat across her desk. After leaving B'Elanna's temporary quarters, he had immediately gone to the Academy superintendent to try to straighten this out. "That doesn't make any sense, Andrea, and you know it. There is no evidence except the words of Cadet Locarno that Cadet Torres had done anything wrong, and I don't know how much you can trust him. It's his name all over that maintenance request and it's his squad that would have been performing an illegal maneuver."

Her frown matched his. "Cadet Nicholas Locarno is an honor student with a near-spotless record. With her record, it's a small miracle that Cadet Torres is still allowed on this campus. How do you expect me to take her word over his?"

He was aghast. "How about the fact that the evidence supports _her_ story, not his!" He took a deep breath. "You know what will happen if you suspend her this close to finals. She won't be able to finish her coursework, and she'll fail all of her classes. She's a bright student, Andrea."

"She's a terror," Brand said flatly. "She's started fights in many of her classes, she speaks back to her professors, she has no respect for authority. Earlier this semester, she defied a professor in class and walked out in the middle of lecture!"

"The board declared that her actions weren't inappropriate, and Commander Isaacs was reprimanded for _his_ actions! Are you telling me that you wouldn't have done the same thing if _your_ personal life was questioned in front of seventy of your peers?"

"Regardless, she is not officer material, and you know it."

He flushed in anger. He didn't lose his temper often, and when he did, it wasn't pleasant. "If you have some sort of personal vendetta against Cadet Torres, this is not the place for it. You've looked at her record, you know that this isn't her style. When she loses her temper, she breaks things. If she's mad at someone for any reason, she doesn't come up with elaborate plots to get them in trouble."

Admiral Brand stared at him for a moment. "You're too close to this, Owen. I know that she's dating your son."

"They're friends," he said flatly. "Not dating. And my son and my objectivity have nothing to do with this, and you know it. It's your job to be impartial and fair to everyone involved—this is an investigation, not a witch hunt. If you suspend Cadet Torres, you have to suspend everyone who might be involved with this, which includes all five Nova Squadron pilots."

"That's ridiculous!"

"No more ridiculous than forcing an extremely intelligent student to fail all of her classes when your 'investigation' could prove her innocent. By the time that happens, it'll be too late."

She considered his words. She knew he was right; this case was nothing like the other instances Cadet Torres had gone in front of the disciplinary board. "Very well, Owen. She's allowed to attend class, but she will have an escort to and from class every day, and she will not go anywhere other than her classrooms and her dorm room." She picked up a PADD and frowned. "And I should tell you this. Because she stated that she discussed the maintenance request with Tom, we're going to have to talk to him. He's going to be sequestered from Cadet Torres until this investigation is over."

Paris nodded as he got up. "I'll let him know." That was a conversation he wasn't looking forward to. He knew it would be easier to have Brand do it, but he felt he owed his son that much.

"And Owen," she added before he walked through the door. "I hope you're right about Cadet Torres' intelligence, because if she did this, she's going to have to be brilliant to get a job anywhere."


	19. Chapter 19

May

"Captain Picard. Thank you so much for altering your plans to get here early to help us with this problem," Admiral Andrea Brand said as Captain Jean-Luc Picard entered her office.

"I'll do whatever I can to get this behind all of us before commencement," he replied. "I am curious, however, as to what you expect of me. It was my understanding that you already have some of your best investigators on the case."

"Yes, that we do," Brand replied with a slight smile. "And after a great deal of investigating, everything still appears to be a matter of 'he-said, she-said.' Locarno and Torres are giving very different versions of what happened, and we haven't been able to get a clear story from anybody else. The inquiry begins tomorrow, and we wanted you to be present for the proceedings, and hopefully pick up on anything we missed."

"I'll do what I can," he replied with a frown. "Before I do that, I was wondering if I could view the notes on the investigation and the files of both Cadet Locarno and Cadet Torres."

"That can be arranged," Brand agreed. "Just to let you know, Cadet Locarno's file reads like a Starfleet Academy recruitment speech. Cadet Torres' file, more like a war novel."

"I see," he murmured. "And would it be possible to speak to the cadets before tomorrow as well?"

This time, she shook her head. "Both of them have been assigned council, who are encouraging them not to discuss this with anyone. In addition, Admiral Paris has been very strict in protecting Cadet Torres' interests. He denies it, but the word is that she's involved with his son."

"I see," he repeated, rubbing his forehead. This was getting more complicated by the minute, with lawyers and admirals and admirals' sons in the mix. "Well, if there's nothing else, I'd like to begin my reading into the case."

"Of course," Admiral Brand replied smoothly. "Lt. Qui will get you everything you need. We begin tomorrow morning at 0900. I'll see you then."

---

"Come in," Cadet Third Class Wesley Crusher called out when the announcer on his door chimed. "Captain," he said in surprise when he saw who stood in his doorway. He tried to get up quickly, not an easy feat when he had been lounging on his bed.

"At ease, Cadet," Captain Picard said as he entered. He glanced around the small room and smiled slightly, remembering his own days as a cadet, living in a similar room.

"I didn't think the _Enterprise_ was arriving until just before commencement," Crusher said, slightly confused.

"Admiral Brand requested that we arrive early to help investigate the situation with your squadron," the captain said as he took a seat at the desk. "Any light you could shine on it would be very helpful."

Crusher grimaced. "I've already talked to the investigators, pretty much every day since it happened. I wasn't there; I don't really know what happened. I heard about it the next day."

"But you know both Cadets Locarno and Torres. So tell me, do you think this is something that Cadet Torres would do?"

"You know, I don't really know Cadet Torres that well," Crusher said reluctantly. "I only worked with her a few times, and we're in the same Interspecies Protocol course, but we didn't talk much in class or about it. I tried to talk to her about it once, but she got really mad at me."

Picard frowned. "She got mad at you about Interspecies Protocol?"

"Well, you see, sir, we were talking about the course, and she said she doesn't usually pay much attention. I said I would have thought it would be something she found interesting, you know, because of her parents, and she told me—"

"Her parents?" Picard interrupted with a frown. "What about her parents?"

Crusher looked confused. "She's half-Klingon, sir. I thought you knew that."

"Ah," Picard responded. He hadn't read her file yet, but it explained Admiral Brand's comments about her war-like record. "Does she lose her temper often?"

Crusher frowned, trying to figure out how to answer. "I guess. I mean, I don't really know her outside the realm of Nova Squadron. She's really protective about the ships. She got mad at Jean—Cadet Hajar—quite a few times about not filling out maintenance requests on time, but she never seemed to have much of a problem with anyone else. She didn't spend much time with the pilots, though, and really only seemed comfortable with a few of the engineers. I tried to get to know her, but she keeps people at a distance."

"What about Admiral Paris' son? Admiral Brand said that they're dating."

"Oh, you mean Ensign Paris? No, they're not dating. At least, I don't think they are. Cadet Jackson teases her about it, but she says they're just friends. He was the Nova Squadron leader last year, and from what Cadet Locarno says, it was Ensign Paris who introduced Cadet Torres to Ensign Patel, the chief engineer of the squad last year, and got her the position on the engineering team."

"I see," Picard replied with a slight frown. There was something familiar about what Wesley had just said, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Hey, Wes," a third voice said from the door. Cadet Nicholas Locarno noticed that there was someone else in the room and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Captain, I didn't realize that Wesley had company. I was just checking up on him."

"It's okay, Nick," Crusher replied. He turned back to Picard and shrugged slightly. "I'm sorry I couldn't help more. If you don't mind, I have a lot of studying to do still before finals next week."

"That's quite alright, Wesley," Picard replied as he stood, forcing a smile. Crusher stood as well, and Locarno straightened at his position in the open doorway. "I will see you later, and I'm sure your mother will be down at some point to see you as well. Good luck with your studying."

"Thank you, sir." Picard nodded briefly, and then disappeared down the corridor. Locarno watched him walk away before fully entering the room, closing the door behind him.

"What did he want to know?" he asked once he was sure no one was listening.

"Nothing," Crusher replied. "He just wanted to know what I knew about Torres."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Nothing," Crusher repeated emphatically. "Except for the fact that she's half-Klingon, which he didn't know but would have figured out as soon as he saw her tomorrow at the inquest. And he asked about Ensign Paris, for some reason. He said Admiral Brand said they were dating, and I told him that as far as I know, they're just friends."

"So he didn't ask anything about the maintenance request or what was on it?" Locarno pressed. Crusher shook his head.

"No, nothing. I told him I didn't know anything about it and I had never seen it, which I haven't."

"Good," Locarno replied, clasping him on the shoulder.

"This doesn't feel right, Nick. I mean, Torres hasn't ever done anything. She's always been a good engineer, you know that."

"Wes," Locarno said gently. "We both know Torres' days at the Academy are numbered no matter what we do. The administration doesn't like cadets who don't know their place, and she's lost her temper too many times. After all, you were there when she made that scene in class. _Everyone_ knows about it. Do you think it's a real stretch for anyone to believe that she could have done this?"

"Well, no," Crusher admitted. "But it still doesn't feel right."

"Listen, Wes, if you don't feel comfortable about this, don't take down the rest of the squad. None of the rest of us deserves that. If you can't stick with what we discussed, resign your position in school and refuse to testify. Protect the squad. You know that everyone would do the same for you."

Crusher sighed and didn't say anything, but nodded slowly. He had learned to put his life in the hands of the other four pilots when he was flying, and he knew they felt the same about him. He couldn't let them down now.


	20. Chapter 20

May

There would have been no mistaking Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres in the inquest the next morning, even if Wesley Crusher hadn't told Captain Picard the day before that she was half-Klingon. She walked in flanked by her lawyers, her head held high and her shoulders back, her eyes dark, as if looking for a fight. Picard couldn't help but be struck with how small she was; he remembered Special Emissary K'Ehleyr, who helped him with the Rite of Succession the year before. She had also been half-Klingon, but had been as tall and strong as any full-blooded Klingon. She was also several years older than Cadet Torres, but had the same fight in her eyes, as if challenging anyone to underestimate her based on her heritage.

Picard continued to watch the young cadet as she took her seat. Although she sat straight in her chair, he could tell she was nervous about being there. She kept smoothing back her thick hair, braided and twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck, and fidgeting with the sleeves of her dress uniform. He noticed that she had worn her medals, as had Cadet Nicholas Locarno. Locarno's collection was more impressive, but Torres' wasn't anything small, either. He couldn't identify all of them from where he was sitting, but he noticed medals for academic honors and physical honors; one he now recognized as the Nova Squadron member medal; another one for the Rigel Cup competition, which was marked with a silver circle and a gold one, one for each of the years she had been at the competition; another for the engineering team award, which had two gold circles; and one he didn't recognize, but was marked with a silver circle and three gold ones. Whatever it was, it told him that there was something that she had come in second once and first three times.

As if aware of his gaze, she turned her eyes from the wall she was staring at toward him. The look on her face was intense, but he didn't flinch, just stared her straight in the eye. Her expression didn't change, but he got the impression that she was studying him just as much as he was her.

Everyone stood as officers presiding over the inquiry entered the room, taking their seats after they took theirs. "Good morning. We are here as a formal inquiry into the actions of Cadet B'Elanna Torres in regards to a maintenance request found in her possession. Council, do you have anything to say before we begin?"

"Yes, sir," Lt. Commander Billiard said, rising from his seat. "Cadet B'Elanna Torres has had two tumultuous years at Starfleet Academy, marked by several appearances before the disciplinary board, each of which she acknowledges was the result of her quickness to lose her temper. This particular incident, however, she denies any involvement in. We will show you that, not only is it inconsistent with her other infractions, but also that her involvement is solely based on the testimony of Cadet Nicholas Locarno, who is the only person in this room with any tangible connection to the maintenance request in question, and who had the most to lose if it came into contact with the proper authorities. Cadet Torres is guilty of no more than being the first scapegoat Cadet Locarno could come up with."

"Thank you, Commander. Commander Anderson, do you have anything before we begin?" she directed at Cadet Locarno's council.

"Yes, sir," the reed-like woman said as she rose. "While Commander Billiard's statements certainly seem entertaining, they are completely without fact, the story of a troubled young cadet who found herself caught by her own plan to disgrace Cadet Locarno, an honor student who recently returned with his Nova Squadron team after they had won the Rigel Cup. Cadet Locarno has a bright career in front of him, and he is eager to put this incident behind him so he can get on with it." She nodded once at Admiral Brand and Captain Satelk before taking her seat.

"Very well," Admiral Brand said. "Commander Anderson, if you would like to present your first witness, we can get this thing started."

Commander Anderson first called Commander Ernest Dennings, the lead investigator on the case, who described, in mind-numbing detail, the steps of his investigation, from when he was first notified of the situation, to finding the PADD with the maintenance request in Cadet Torres' quarters, to interviewing the other members of Nova Squadron, both the pilots and engineers. Everything he said was cold and factual, lacking any emotional attachment either way. Commander Billiard had no further questions for him.

The next few witnesses all testified on Torres' disciplinary problems, describing her frequent outbursts and difficulties following Starfleet protocols and Academy rules. Although Commander Billiard gently teased out of each one a description of how Torres was provoked or the involvement of another party, Captain Picard could tell that the words were getting to the young cadet. She sat stoically, her eyes fixed forward, her jaw set, not visibly reacting to anything that was said.

When they took a recess for lunch, Commander Anderson announced that she would be calling Cadet Nicholas Locarno to testify as soon as the proceedings began again. After the presiding officers filed out of the hearing room, everyone present began to rise and gather their things to head out. Captain Picard noticed that Cadet Locarno seemed to be in a good mood, smiling and joking with his JAG lawyers. Cadet Torres, on the other hand, seemed even more defiant than when she walked into the room that morning. A tall Bajoran in a red shirt and ensign's pips gently rubbed her arm and said something softly, but she only shook her head violently and twisted from his touch.

"Cadet Torres?" Captain Picard asked as he approached. "May I have a word?"

"No, Captain," Commander Billiard answered for her. "You'll hear everything my client has to say tomorrow when she gives her testimony."

"I was just hoping to clear up a few things I read in the report," Picard replied.

"Which her testimony will do, tomorrow. I'm sorry, Captain, but I won't have you or anybody else disturbing the cadet. If you excuse us, she has to go speak to her professors about the assignments she is missing in class today." The lt. commander gave a short nod as he escorted his client out of the room. Close to the door she turned slightly and glanced back at the starship captain, her expression almost quizzical. Without a second thought, she squared her shoulders and continued on her way.

---

"Cadet Locarno," Commander Billiard began as he rose from his chair. The cadet first class had just been walked through his testimony by his own lawyer, and now Commander Billiard was beginning his cross-examination. Sitting at the defense table, Cadet B'Elanna Torres was furiously taking notes on a PADD, her already ridged forehead further furrowed in concentration. "You mentioned a conversation with Cadet Torres a few hours before you reported your discovery of the maintenance request. Can you walk us through that conversation?"

"Of course," Locarno said smoothly. His eyes briefly wandered over to the half-Klingon engineer, then immediately back to her lawyer. "She was finishing up a diagnostic on the EPS manifolds of my sublight craft when I approached. She seemed a little surprised to see me, but quickly recovered. She gave me the report on the condition of my shuttle, said that everything was fine and I wouldn't have any problems when we took it out to the Academy Flight Range over the weekend. She then said that she had some ideas for improvements to the crafts before graduation and wanted to talk about them over dinner."

"Is that normal?" Billiard interrupted. "For a junior engineer to approach the squad leader with ideas for improvements?"

"No, not really," Locarno said. "Usually, if a junior engineer has any ideas for modifications, he or she would write them up and turn them in directly to chief engineer, who would evaluate them and then discuss them with the squad leader. I guess I just figured at the time that she was practicing for being chief engineer. There was a rumor going around that Chapman was going to make her chief next year. I realize now that she must have been trying to blackmail me for something, to show me the request and threaten to turn it in."

_Was going to_. The past tense wasn't lost on Torres, whose frown deepened as she entered more notes into the PADD. She tried to ignore his words about blackmail. She had to admit, what he said was true; junior engineers don't approach the squad leader, or any other pilot, with modification ideas. Of course, squad leaders didn't hand maintenance requests to junior engineers, either. She wondered if that would work to her favor or against it.

"So she's a good engineer?" Billiard asked. "I mean, if Admiral Chapman wanted to make her the chief engineer as a second classman, she must be, right?"

"Yeah, she's very talented at what she did," Locarno said. Torres flinched again at the use of the past tense.

"Talented enough that a pilot would ask her to look over a maintenance request before it was handed into the chief engineer? You know, just to make sure that there weren't any computational errors or design flaws?"

"I suppose," Locarno said with a frown. "Although if that ever happened, I never heard about it."

"I see," Billiard murmured, seemingly absently. "What would you say Cadet Torres' expertise is when it comes to engineering?"

"I'm not sure, really," Locarno said. "I think she's majoring in propulsion, but I also heard that she's interested in mechanics. I know she works in Admiral Chapman's lab, and does research on impulse drivers and EPS systems. Whenever there's a repair to be made in either of those, Jacks—Cadet Jackson—sends her to take a look at it."

"How is she with shield mechanics?"

Locarno frowned again. "I'm not sure. We only had one problem with the shields the entire year, and Cadet Jackson took care of it."

"What about coolant interlocks?"

"Again, I don't know. Cadet Jackson would know better than I which engineers are good at which repairs."

"Hmm," Commander Billiard murmured. "But you've never seen her make a repair to either of those systems?"

"No, sir," Locarno replied.

"How involved is Cadet Torres is flight plans and preparing for maneuvers?" Billiard asked, seeming to change tracks.

"Not at all, sir," Locarno said, confused. "None of the engineers are, really. That's between the squad leader and the navigator. Occasionally, if there's a problem with how the ships handle, we'll bring in the chief engineer."

"So, as far as you know, Cadet Torres knew nothing about any maneuvers, save for the ones that the squadron has performed?"

"That's right, sir," he said with a frown.

"So it would be safe to give her a list of modifications that needed to made to the shuttles to perform a fairly unknown maneuver, wouldn't it? Because she wouldn't be able to make the connection between a given stunt and the changes that had to be made to perform the maneuver?"

"That's not what happened, sir!" Locarno exclaimed. "I never gave Cadet Torres a maintenance request form. I hand those directly into Cadet Jackson."

"But Cadet Jackson would know right away what the modifications were for, wouldn't he? He would take one look at that request and know immediately that you were planning a Kolvoord Starburst, an illegal maneuver at the Academy, and he would report you to your commanding officer. So to cover your tracks, you had to first give it to someone who wouldn't know what to look for. Unfortunately for you, Cadet Torres knew more about flight plans than you realized."

"Objection, he's badgering my client," Commander Anderson protested.

"Do you have a question, Mr. Billiard?" Admiral Brand asked.

"Did you give Cadet Torres the maintenance request in hopes that she wouldn't realize what you had planned?" Billiard asked pointedly.

Locarno's small smile was slightly smug. "No, sir," he replied.

Billiard appeared to think about this for a moment, but in truth, he already knew that that would be Locarno's response. He just hoped his line of thinking made Brand and Satelk start to see things his way. "Oh, one more question, Cadet," he said, almost as if an afterthought. "What day did this conversation with Cadet Torres take place?"

"Monday. Why?"

"Monday," Billiard said thoughtfully. "That's a bit odd. I remember reading from Cadet Jackson's questioning during the investigation that Cadet Torres had standing dinner plans with Ensign Thomas Paris every Monday night that he was stationed on Earth. Ensign Paris has been at Research and Development in San Francisco for a few months now. Why would she break dinner plans that were unchanged for almost a year to discuss planned modifications with you?"

For the first time since he began his testimony, Locarno appeared to be at a loss for words. He hadn't considered that that question would come up, and judging from the impressed expression on Cadet Torres' face, she hadn't thought about it, either. "I guess I must have misunderstood her comments, sir," Locarno finally replied. He shrugged slightly. "Maybe she suggested going over the plans over dinner the next night. I don't remember, exactly."

"Did she give you the PADD she was carrying at that point?" Billiard asked.

"No."

"Did she set it down anywhere?"

"Not that I noticed."

Billiard leaned forward slightly. "So, how did you see this allegedly forged document?"

"Objection," Anderson called out from her seat. "Inflammatory."

"Sustained," Brand replied. "Please restate, Commander."

"Let me get this straight, Cadet. You're saying that Cadet Torres drew up a false maintenance request in order to extort you for some reason. However, the day before she wanted to show it to you and make her demands, she tells you that she wants to meet with you the next day, makes a copy of the forged request, and leaves it where anyone could find it? Does that sound like the actions of someone who wants something from you?"

"I don't know!" Locarno said emphatically. "I wouldn't have thought blackmail would be the right way of going about it, either, but I guess I was wrong about that, too. I don't know why Torres did any of the things she did."

"Nothing further," Billiard said as he retook his seat.


	21. Chapter 21

May

"I can't do this," Cadet B'Elanna Torres said as she paced the small dorm room. "It's just too much."

"You're doing fine," Ensign Winat Gial assured her from his seat at the desk. "Locarno looked like an idiot on the stand today."

"No, he didn't," Torres replied with a frown. "He had an explanation for everything. Not always a good explanation, but an explanation." She gave a frustrated moan. "And he's an honor student, a model cadet. _Nobody_ is going to believe that every word that came out of his mouth is a lie."

"Well, you'll make them believe tomorrow when you testify," Winat replied. "It's going to be okay. You'll do great."

"No, Gial, it's _not_ going to be okay," Torres said, stopping to stare at him. "This whole thing has gotten so far out of hand. I walk around campus escorted by security guards and lawyers. Nobody will even look at me. Regardless of what the admiral and captain decide, the entire student body has already declared me guilty. Even if they realize that I didn't do anything wrong, every single one of my fellow cadets will remember me as the one who tried to ruin the Nova Squadron less than a month after they won the Rigel Cup for the first time in more than a decade." She gave a short laugh. "Those five pilots are practically gods on this campus, Gial. Nobody is going to believe that any of them, especially their esteemed leader, did anything wrong. Me, well, I'm just the half-breed who's known for walking out of class and starting fights in Astrotheory 101. No matter the decision when this is said and done, I don't have a future here. I might as well just drop out and save everyone the trouble. At least then everyone gets to keep their heroes intact."

"You think that's going to solve anything? Letting Locarno know that he has complete control over other people's thoughts and actions? It's not going to stop here, Torres, unless you stop him. He's going to continue doing what he's been doing, manipulating people, getting away with whatever he wants. You have the power to stop him."

"No, I don't," she shot back. "Nobody believes anything I say. Nobody wants me here. I'm just disappointed it took me this long to realize it."

"Chapman wants you here," he pointed out. "He gave you a place in his lab, has named you the chief for next year. Admiral Paris is fighting for you. Jacks doesn't believe for a second that you did anything wrong. If Tom, Siobhan, and Ryan were able to be here, they'd tell you that they want you here. You have people who care about you, Torres. Don't let them down."

"It's not enough, Gial," she said softly. "This is going to follow me around forever. Nobody is going to forget, everybody is going to be watching my every move and waiting for me to mess up again. All those people who care about me, they can't protect me."

He looked at her for a moment before saying anything. "What I'm about to tell you doesn't leave this room—at all. You won't tell Tom, or Admiral Paris, or anybody, what I'm about to say. The only person in the universe who knows the story is Siobhan, and I know she's not talking." He took a deep breath. "The reason I spend all of my breaks at the Paris house is because I have nowhere else to go. I grew up on Bajor, the only son of a Vedek and his wife. My father was involved in the resistance for as long as I can remember, although nobody advertised that fact.

"When I was sixteen, I had just completed my education as a Prylar—essentially, a monk who assists Vedeks in the services—when I received notification that my father had been killed by the Cardassians after they discovered his involvement with the resistance. Things weren't safe for my mother or myself at that point, so we fled and went into hiding. Only a few members of the Vedek assembly knew where we were. For about six months, we were living on a colony, in a village under assumed names, waiting for things to calm down enough for me to continue my religious training and my mother to return to her family on Bajor. The Cardassians found us first, while I was at the temple. They took my mother, and I haven't seen her since. I don't know whether she's dead or alive.

"So I fled, back to the Vedek assembly to seek protection. It was while I was there that I discovered that it was a member of the assembly, one of my father's closest friends from his training, who informed the Cardassians that my father was in the resistance and told them where to find my mother and I."

"What did you do?" Torres asked softly when he paused.

He looked up at her, his green eyes wide with an anger she had never seen before, not even in herself. "The first thing I did was inflict as much damage to the temple as I could, and then I tore my robes and swore to never wear them again," he said bitterly. "I refused to follow the same Prophets who allowed one of their own holy leaders to commit such acts against another and against all of Bajor. I then did exactly what he did. I told the resistance where they would find a Vedek spying for the Cardassians. They captured, tortured, and killed him while I was on a transport headed for Federation space. I arrived on Earth, took the entrance exam for the Academy, and in their quest to include more Bajorans in Starfleet, they didn't look too deeply into my past.

"I had just turned eighteen and was pretty much as angry as any teenager could be, grieving for the loss of my father, my mother, my faith. Angry, and completely terrified that somebody was going to discover my secret. I was always watching my back, convinced that everyone knew who I was and what I was. I had nightmares of being woken up in the middle of the night by Starfleet security officers who would take me to some dark interrogation room and bring in a whole group of Cardies who wanted to torture me for revealing their rat to the resistance. I was a complete mess, and absolutely convinced that the Academy was the wrong place for me to be. I didn't know how I would find peace or absolution, but I just knew it wouldn't come by wearing a Starfleet uniform. I had actually gotten as far as packing my bags to leave."

"What changed your mind?"

"Siobhan came into my room to ask for help with an assignment in Officership 1 and asked where all of my stuff was. Although we hung out in the same group, I didn't know her too well at that point, since both of us kept a lot of ourselves private. I told her I was leaving, she asked why, and the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of telling her how I got a man killed. She listened to my story without saying anything, then she told me her story—which is entirely her own to tell, you're not going to get it from me. When she was done talking, I realized that we all have our pasts and we all have our issues, and every cadet is just as screwed up as the next." He turned his gaze from the wall to Torres. "She let me know that it's okay to be screwed up and it's okay to be different than everyone around you, and I realized that the only way that I'm going to find peace and absolution is to not let anyone take away my dreams and my goals ever again, like Vedek Yala did when I was sixteen." He leaned forward, his voice insistent. "If you let Locarno take the Academy away from you, you're going to hate yourself for the rest of your life. You're going to have to live with the anger of knowing that one hateful little man had power over your future. If you want to leave the Academy, that's fine. Just do it on your terms, not his." He stopped and looked as if he was going to say anything, but changed his mind and got up to leave. "Get some rest, Torres. You have a long day in front of you tomorrow."


	22. Chapter 22

May

"Good morning, Patel," Ensign Wendy Quinn said cheerfully as Ensign Siobhan Patel placed her breakfast tray on the table and took a seat.

"That's a matter of opinion," Patel replied grumpily.

Quinn laughed. "Hey, aren't you on beta shift this week?"

"This lifetime, it seems," grumbled Patel in reply. "It's driving me crazy. I never know when I'm supposed to be asleep and when I'm supposed to be awake."

"Yeah, it is a bit early, isn't it? You're not duty until 1600."

"Yeah, I know," Patel replied, taking a bite of the French toast she had replicated. "It's only 0900. I just wanted to take some time to look over the results from my last experiment and try to figure out where things went so bloody awful."

"I know that feeling," Quinn sympathized with a chuckle. She was an organic chemist in the life sciences division, and pretty much all she did was run experiments. "Hey, weren't you on the Nova Squadron engineering team on Earth while you where at the Academy?"

"I was the _chief_ engineer," Patel said with a grin. "Why?"

"Well," Quinn said, leaning forward in her seat. "I heard that the reason we arrived a full week early was that something was going on with this year's squad."

Patel frowned. "Really? What?"

"Now, I heard this through the grapevine, so I don't know how accurate it, but from what I hear, one of the junior engineers forged a maintenance request to make it look like the pilots were about to perform an illegal maneuver."

"Oh, my God," Patel murmured, her face going as ashen as it was capable. She stood abruptly from the table, surprising Quinn and the diners around them.

"Siobhan? Where are you going?" Quinn asked with concern as Patel headed for the door.

"I need to talk go to Commander La Forge. Right now."

She arrived in Engineering a few minutes later, out of breath from almost running down the corridors. "Commander? Can I have a word with you?" Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge glanced down at the slight ensign speaking to him.

"Ensign Patel. Can this wait? I was about to start a level one diagnostic on the injection manifolds."

"Actually, sir, it's rather important." At the urgency of her voice, he put down his PADD, his curiosity piqued.

"Okay, Ensign, you got my attention. What is it?"

She took a deep breath, trying to figure out where to begin. "Sir, is it true that one of the Nova Squadron engineers has been accused of forging a maintenance report?"

La Forge frowned down at the ensign. "Ensign, I'm not at liberty to discuss an ongoing Academy investigation, you know that."

"Yes, sir," Patel replied. "But I have to tell you, sir, less than a week ago, I got a personal and urgent message while I was on duty. It was Cadet Torres, and she was visibly upset about something, which is not really that unusual. She said she had a maintenance request that she wanted me to look at so she could get my impressions about what it was for. I said I would do it, so she sent the file and I downloaded it to review after I got off duty. It took me about thirty seconds after I saw it to realize that Cadet Locarno wanted to modify the crafts in attempts to perform the Kolvoord Starburst. There is no other explanation for those modifications, I checked, and I know exactly what goes into that maneuver; I did a report for it in my Flight Trainer Modifications course I took as an elective my fourth year. I wrote up a quick analysis of the request, and I tried to contact Cadet Torres to give her my impressions, but I couldn't get a hold of her, so I just sent it as a message to be read later instead."

La Forge's frown deepened. "Ensign, the investigators believe that Cadet Torres manufactured that request in order to get back at Cadet Locarno for something."

She shook her head emphatically. "With all due respect sir, that's not what happened at all. I know B'Elanna, and she doesn't work that way. If she wants to get someone back for something, she breaks their jaw, not accuses them of preparing to fly illegal maneuvers. And she was really shaken up by this report. I have never seen her try to act, but I cannot imagine her being that good. And finally, she never told me that it was Cadet Locarno who wrote that request; in fact, she deleted the name from the form itself. I read maintenance request forms from those pilots for an entire year, sir, and I can identify the author of one without even thinking about. Cadet Locarno wrote that, there is no question in my mind about that."

He sighed deeply as he tried to figure out what to do. "You should tell the captain about this, Ensign, but unfortunately, he's already down on the planet at the inquiry. He won't be back until at least 1600."

"Sir, I will do whatever I can to help Cadet Torres."

He smiled slightly. "Then she's lucky to have you as a friend. Write this up as a report to give to the captain as soon as returns, and we'll take it to him together."

She smiled gratefully. "Thank you, sir." She turned to leave, then turned back. "Sir, do you think it'll make a difference?"

"If Captain Picard is convinced that your friend didn't do anything wrong, he's going to make sure that she's not punished for anything. You just need to convince him."

---

As it was, Captain Picard wasn't completely convinced that she _had_ done anything wrong. He had arrived at the room where the inquiry was held at 0845, fifteen minutes before the day was scheduled to begin. Taking advantage of the relative quiet of his surroundings, he pulled out his PADD and resumed reading the file on Cadet B'Elanna Torres.

What he read, both the good and the bad, impressed him greatly. She had been raised on Kessik IV, a fairly non-descript Federation colony. There wasn't much in her file regarding her childhood, with the exception of the fact that she had skipped the eighth grade, and in high school, had been invited to compete in the Jameson competition for secondary school engineering all four years, coming in second as a thirteen-year-old freshman and winning her remaining three years. He remembered where he had seen the medal that baffled him the day before; he had been present at a Jameson competition when he was a cadet, and that medal was one of the few earned prior to admission to the Academy that Starfleet allowed its cadets and officers to wear. He quickly checked the information on the Jameson, and confirmed what he thought he knew: only one person in the long history of the award had ever won it three times, and that person was B'Elanna Torres.

He was about to get to her Academy record when the doors slid open and she entered with her legal team. As she had the day before, she walked in with her head held high, her eyes defiant, but this time he sensed an underlying current of fear. Today she would be taking the stand, and this was the only chance she would get to try to convince Admiral Brand and Captain Setelk that she had done nothing wrong.

If she noticed his presence, she gave no indication, sitting at the defense table and quietly conferring with her legal team. They seemed oblivious to their surroundings as Cadet Locarno and his lawyers entered, followed by a slow trickle of interested officers sitting in the galley. The proceedings weren't open, but anyone above a certain rank who could claim a vested interest would probably be allowed in.

With still about two minutes on the chronometer before the presiding officers would arrive, the room went suddenly quiet. Picard turned toward the door to see what had gotten everyone's attention, and it took him a minute to realize what was happening.

The first two people through the door, to those who didn't know them, would have been notable for their looks alone. Both women were tall and slender, blond-haired and blue-eyed. One, fairer than the other, had her pale hair gathered in a bun and was wearing a teal uniform with a single pip; an ensign in one of the science divisions. The other had darker blond hair cut just below her ears and slightly more color to her skin, and was wearing the gold uniform of a tactical officer with the two gold and one black pips of a lt. commander.

For everyone who failed to recognize Lt. Commander Janine Paris Marshall and Ensign Elisabeth Paris Houston at first glance, they probably figured it out when the next two walked through the door. There was no mistaking Admiral Owen Paris, and to most, his wife Alicia was as familiar. As if that weren't enough, however, following his son through the door was retired Fleet Admiral Joshua Elijiah Paris, close to ninety years old if not past it, yet walking with the same inner strength and determination he always had while still wearing the uniform.

The Paris family took their seats in the row immediately behind the defense table. Captain Picard watched as Ensign Houston leaned forward to say something to Cadet Torres. She had looked surprised and slightly disappointed when she saw who walked through the doors, but whatever Ensign Houston had said seemed to put her at ease. She nodded, seemingly out of appreciation, and replied with a slightly sad smile on her face. Before he could speculate further on what had just happened, everyone rose as Admiral Brand and Captain Setelk entered the room to begin the second day of proceedings. After the standard opening remarks from the presiding officers, Commander Billiard called his client to the stand. She rose and walked to the witness box without any fear or trepidation.

"Cadet Torres," Commander Billiard began. "Can you tell us what happened Monday night?"

"I was running a diagnostic on the EPS manifolds of Cadet Locarno's craft," she began. "I was just finishing up when he came up behind me."

"Were you surprised to see him?" Commander Billiard asked.

"Yeah, I guess. I didn't realize that any of the pilots were in the hangar that night. They hadn't been practicing in the ships since we got back from Rigel Cup."

"So what happened then?"

"He handed me a PADD, and told me that the pilots had been running flight simulations, and things were a bit shaky, as he described it. He said that he had a few modifications he wanted to see made to the flyers, and asked me to look over his maintenance request over dinner before handing it into Jacks—Cadet Jackson."

"Was this something he usually did? Asking you to look over his maintenance requests?"

She shook her head emphatically. "Never. He always turned his into Cadet Jackson right away, but this time he asked if I could take a look at it and clean it up before he turned it in. He said he never knew exactly what to put, and felt like an idiot in front of us 'smart-engineering-types'. Those were his words."

"Did you ask what was different about this time that made him hand it to you first?"

"I didn't ask," she replied. "I didn't give it much thought. I was already running late and didn't want to take up too much time."

"Running late for what, Cadet?"

She blushed slightly, her eyes drifting briefly to the Paris family still sitting behind the defense table. She straightened and returned her gaze to her lawyer. "Dinner with Ensign Paris. We have a standing engagement, we meet every Monday night as long as he's stationed on Earth."

"Was Cadet Locarno aware of this arrangement?"

"I thought he was," she admitted. "It wasn't a secret or anything; actually, most nights we ate on campus, and on a few occasions, members of Nova Squadron have come up to talk to us while we're eating. In fact, when I told him I couldn't meet him for dinner that night, Cadet Locarno nodded and asked, 'Tom Paris?', to which I replied in the affirmative."

"Did you propose an alternative?" he asked.

"Yes, I said I would look through the request that night after I had done my studying and make some primary revisions, and then we could discuss it further over dinner the next night."

"Did you look through the PADD at that time?"

"I thumbed through the data, to make sure everything was there," she replied.

"And was it?"

She shook her head. "No, sir. He hadn't included the data from the simulations that he said they had run. I asked him about it, but he said he had forgotten. I didn't press the issue."

"Why is that important? To have the data from the simulations?"

Captain Picard found his mind wandering as she described the information she could get from a simulator report. There was something about the simulations that was important, he was sure of it. He frowned as he began thumbing through the reports on his PADD. Nobody had mentioned anything about flight simulators before now. He made a note to himself to look into it.

"So when did you get a chance to look at the request Cadet Locarno had given you?" Commander Billiard was asking.

"Over dinner," Torres replied promptly. "There was a lull in the conversation, and I took advantage of it to get some work done?"

"Ensign Paris didn't mind?" Billiard asked with a smile. Picard couldn't help but see the amused looks Ensign Paris' sisters shared.

"We often bring work or homework to dinner," Torres replied with a shrug. "Sometimes we bounce ideas off each other, especially when I'm dealing with something for the squad, since he's a former squad leader."

"Did you discuss this maintenance request with him?"

"Yes," she replied. "I noticed right away that something wasn't right with the situation. First of all, the maintenance request was regarding shield polarity, coolant interlocks, and plasma injectors. I know a little about shields, but not much, haven't done anything with coolant interlocks, but am pretty confident with plasma injectors. Overall, I didn't know why Cadet Locarno had given me that request, when there are engineers who have much more knowledge in those areas, until I began to suspect what those changes were for. I wasn't completely sure, so I asked Ensign Paris for his opinion."

"And what did he say?"

"He said that the only maneuver that calls for the changes outlined in the maintenance request was a Kolvoord Starburst."

"What did you do then?"

"Ensign Paris advised me to tell someone right away, as the Kolvoord Starburst is an illegal maneuver at the Academy. I didn't want to get anyone in trouble without being sure, so I contacted Ensign Siobhan Patel aboard the _Enterprise_. She was the chief engineer of Nova Squadron last year, and I trust her judgment. Before I heard back from her, though, security took me from my room to the holding cell."

At the sound of his ship's name, Captain Picard looked up and frowned. He realized why the sound of Ensign Patel's name stuck with him after he left Wesley Crusher's room; she was one of his engineers. He had a nagging feeling that she knew something that would make or break Cadet Torres' case.


	23. Chapter 23

May

"Geordi," Captain Picard called out as he entered engineering. A second later, his chief engineer's head emerged from around the corner.

"Captain," Lt. Commander La Forge replied. "How is the case going?"

"I was hoping to talk to you about that. Actually, I was hoping to talk to one of your engineers."

"Ensign Patel?" La Forge asked.

Picard frowned. "Yes, how did you know?"

"Ensign Patel talked to me this morning. Apparently, Cadet Torres contacted her near the end of her shift Monday night. You're going to want to hear what she has to say."

---

Cadet Wesley Crusher took a second to orient himself after he materialized in the transporter room aboard the _Enterprise_. "Wesley!" his mother explained as she rushed forward.

"Hey, Mom," he replied, giving her a hug. "Captain Picard wanted to see me?"

Dr. Beverly Crusher nodded. "He's waiting in his ready room. He asked me to take you right there." She smiled slightly. "I don't know what he wants, but it sounded urgent. Come on." She tilted her head toward the door and began walking. Her son followed obediently.

Dr. Crusher left her son at the door to the ready room and rubbed his shoulder reassuringly. He smiled back before walking through the door.

"Ah, Cadet Crusher. Have a seat. Can I get you anything?" Captain Picard asked when the cadet entered.

"Uh, no, I'm good, thanks," he replied slowly, noticing the ensign already sitting in one of the chairs.

"Do you know Ensign Siobhan Patel, Cadet?" Picard asked as he took the seat behind his desk, sipping his tea.

"Only by reputation. It's nice to meet you, sir," he said, extending his hand toward the ensign.

"You too, Cadet," she said, her voice cold even as she took his hand.

"Ensign Patel and I were having an interesting discussion before you came in," Picard said casually. "She was explaining to me how maintenance requests for Nova Squadron work. One thing I didn't realize is that pilots and engineers have different forms to fill out. The pilot request forms go directly to the chief engineer, whereas the engineering requests are discussed as a group. It seems like an efficient system, if you ask me."

"Yes, sir," Crusher replied, confused. He didn't know where this was going.

"Apparently, you pilots are pretty rough on the crafts," Picard continued. "Some more rough than others, and some report problems more than others. Over the course of a season, how many pilot requests would you say are processed, Ensign?"

She frowned as she pretended to think about it. "Well, the season starts in November, ends in May. Things are busiest in March and April as the team is getting ready for the Rigel Cup. Overall, I would say the average is forty requests a month, for almost seven months, so almost three hundred requests, ranging from the mundane to the elaborate."

"And all of those are processed by the chief engineer?" Picard continued.

"During March and April, when the requests increase, sometimes the deputy chief gives a hand, but for the most part, yes," Patel replied.

"I'm sure near the end of your term as chief, you got pretty good at processing those requests."

"It got to the point I could guess what crafts needed what by simply glancing at the request," Patel boasted.

Picard raised his eyebrows. "That seems rather impressive. How did you do that?"

"Well, each pilot had his or her own craft, and typically did the same type of damage each time. After reading nearly three hundred reports, I could tell each pilot by the formatting of the request alone."

"So you mean to tell me that each pilot wrote his or her requests differently?" She nodded in reply, and he continued, "So if I gave you a request without the name on it, you could identify it?"

"As long as it was one of last year's pilots, yes," she replied without missing a beat. Crusher began to see where this was going, and he didn't like it.

"I think we need a demonstration," Picard continued. He handed her a PADD. "I've downloaded a random sample of requests from last year. Could you tell me the authors?"

She took the PADD and began scanning. "Sito Jaxa," she began. "Ryan Addison. Sito again. Jean Hajar—check the date, it's probably off by a week. Tom Paris. Addison. Nick Locarno. Paris. Sito. Hajar." She got to one and chuckled. "The name will say Paris, but it was written by B'Elanna Torres. She wrote most of his requests near the end of the year. Always clearer when she did them. Addison again. Hajar." She glanced at the captain, no more requests to read. "So how did I do?"

"One hundred percent," Picard replied lightly. "Impressive."

"Sir, what does this have to do with me?" Crusher finally asked. Patel turned to him, her eyes cold, but it was Picard who answered.

"Apparently, Cadet Torres sent the maintenance request she had in her possession to Ensign Patel late Monday night, shortly before she was taken into custody. She eliminated the name to avoid getting anyone in trouble, but since she had never processed maintenance requests from pilots, she didn't realize how identifiable each would be by formatting alone. According to Ensign Patel, the request was written by Nicholas Locarno." Crusher swallowed, but Picard wasn't over. "Cadet Torres said something this morning in her testimony that got my attention. She said that Locarno gave her the request because the team was having problems in the simulators. However, when I went back and checked, I could not find any record of the simulators being used by Nova Squadron in the last month. In fact, for all of the time periods that Nova Squadron was scheduled to use the simulators, there were not any records of them being used at all," he paused, then added, "almost as if someone had erased the records. So tell me, Mr. Crusher, had you been using the simulators?"

Crusher took a deep breath, remembering Locarno's words about protecting the squad. Somehow, that suddenly didn't mean as much as performing his duty as a future Starfleet officer. "Yes, sir," he admitted.

"And this never came up until now?" Picard asked sharply. "What else aren't you telling us? What simulation were you running?"

"I didn't know anything about the request, that much is true. And neither did Josh or Jaxa. On Monday night, Nick called us all to his room for a meeting. He said that someone had gotten wind of the fact that we were running simulations of the Kolvoord Starburst. Jaxa replied that it wasn't a big deal, we were allowed to run simulations of whatever we wanted, it just meant that we couldn't do it for real. Josh was relieved; he wasn't comfortable with the maneuver, even in the simulator. Jean got upset, and said that we could get in trouble for even running the simulations, and told us that we couldn't tell anyone what we had done. It wasn't until the next day when I saw Cadet Torres escorted to class and heard what she was accused of that I figured out about the request."

Picard studied him for a moment, as if trying to decide if that was the whole story. "If you want to save your career, you have to report this. If you don't, I will, and you will go down with Locarno and Hajar." He rose and walked to the other side of his desk, leaning back against it, still studying the cadet. "I will not have you ruin another cadet's career to save your own. That is not the type of Starfleet officer that I want to be associated with. Do you understand, Cadet?"

"Yes, sir," Crusher replied automatically. "Sir, please, give me some time to talk to Jaxa and Josh and let us come forward together. They weren't any more involved in this than I was."

"You have until tomorrow at 1000 hours," Picard replied. "If you haven't reported this by then, I'll do it, and the five of you will most likely be expelled."

"Yes, sir," Crusher replied.

"Dismissed, Cadet." Before leaving the ready room, Crusher's eyes drifted briefly to Ensign Patel. Her dark green eyes were focused on him, and burned with an intense anger that he had never seen the likes of before.

---

"In light of the testimony brought forth by Cadets Sito, Crusher, and Albert, this board has no choice but to clear Cadet Torres of all charges," Admiral Brand began. "In addition, for conspiring to accuse a fellow cadet of crimes she did not commit, it is the ruling of this board to expel Cadets Nicholas Locarno and Jean Hajar. For their involvement, and considering their eventual willingness to come forward, Cadets Sito, Crusher, and Albert will be placed on probation for the period of one year. Finally, I believe it goes without saying that Nova Squadron will not be performing at commencement this year." With a final clang of the bell, the inquiry was officially over. Ensigns Winat Gial and Siobhan Patel, who had beamed down that morning with Captain Picard, rushed over to Cadet B'Elanna Torres to congratulate her. She smiled thinly and thanked them, thanked her lawyers, then turned and headed toward the exit.

Standing right on the other side of the door was Ensign Tom Paris. He looked up, surprised, at the sound of the doors sliding open, and his face broke into a wide grin. "I knew you'd get off without any problems," he said, pulling her into a tight hug. After a moment, Torres pulled away and looked up at him, her face serious.

"I'm leaving on Thursday, after my last final," she said bluntly.

He blinked, processing her words. "Leaving for where?" he asked.

"Qo'noS," she replied. "Admiral Chapman arranged for me to do a summer exchange at the Klingon Institute of Engineering. Their summer classes start in a week."

"So when are you coming back?" he asked, his good mood fading quickly.

She looked up at him, then glanced back at the closed door where her inquiry had been. "I don't know if I am," she said finally. "I don't know if there's a place here for me anymore." While he was still searching for words, she turned and walked away.

**The End... To be continued in Part 3**


End file.
